The following is a definition of Systems Engineering from one of our books Systems Engineering Design:

Discipline that concentrates on the design and application of the whole (system) as distinct from the parts. It involves looking at a problem in its entirety, taking into account all the facets and all the variables and relating the social to the technical aspect. -- Simon Ramo.

Most have either forgotten or abandoned the social aspects. We always relate the social aspect to the problem being solved. It is always about us and making life better for all of us.

The Systems Approach

The following is offered from Systems Practices As Common Sense:

What is Systems Engineering?

Imagine a place where you create things and make decisions where there are no hidden agendas and all stakeholders are treated equally. How would potential approaches surface, how would they be narrowed and selected, how would decisions be made? What tools and techniques would be used if they were not the greatest moneyed interests, the most politically powerful, or the most dangerous?

Systems Engineering is based on logical methods using reasonable techniques understood by reasonable people in a process that is fully transparent and visible to everyone. Everyone has a view of all the alternatives. Everyone has a view of all the decision paths. Everyone has an opportunity to impact the alternatives and decision paths.

Do not fall for the rhetoric that this is mob rule or design by committee. These are reasonable people using thousands of years of tools, techniques, processes, and methods to make informed decisions. There are no hidden agendas with vested interests or people who just give up and go silent or worse compromise. Everyone is comfortable with the decision because it is intuitively obvious to all. Everyone obviously has responsibility in such an endeavor. No one can ignore that responsibility.

Some of Our Projects

Our most recent project is COVID-19 research from a systems perspective that started in 2020 and we have developed IP and prototype software to address the ventilation challenges that must be faced in the 21st century. This research has intersected with our previous research on sustainability started in 2008 while addressing Climate Action Plans in 2024. The following is a list of some of our other projects:

• Early e-commerce, one of the first e-commerce malls (circa 1997)
• Massive Internet mining of website visitor patterns to understand: (white papers, presentations software)
  • How and why visitors stay
  • Impacts of advertising on visitor confidence
  • Analysis of international and domestic search engine wars
• Internet mining spinoffs (white papers, presentations, software, delivered systems)
  • Automated traceability to the line of code and requirements (software and hardware VHDL)
  • Automated testing with gigabytes of data reduced to a 2 page report that links to the line of code, requirement statement, and test data point
  • Software entropy measurements with each new release
  • A system and software to certify extremely mission critical US Government systems
  • Document analysis tools - Specification Analysis Tool (SAT), General Document Analysis tool (GDA), Constitutional Analysis Tool (CAT)
• Automated analysis of global warming policy documents using GDA (white papers, presentations)
• Sustainable systems practices framework (book, course content)
• University graduate level systems curriculum suggestions, online systems engineering courses, and text books
• Systems theory framework based on control theory (book, course content)
• A framework to use systems engineering practices and thinking to address non-engineering challenges (book, course content)
• Systems engineering for peace - a framework
• FAA privatization consequences from a systems perspective (legislation suggestions, book, course content)
• US Government shutdowns from a systems perspective (white papers, book)
• Privatization in the USA from a systems perspective (white papers, book)
• COVID-19 research from a systems perspective (legislation suggestions, book, course content)
• Airborne contagions and facility ventilation (IP and software)
• Invasion of Ukraine from a systems perspective
• Climate Action Plans - Ventilation Carbon Footprint Vs. Health Vs. Climate Disasters

The themes are sustainability, social need, urgency, application of Internet technologies all from the systems perspective.

Who are we?

We have two founders. Our first founder is a Drexel University BSEE with decades of experience in very large complex mission critical systems using computers, software, communications systems, and large numbers of people in massively automated systems using bleeding edge and state of the art technologies of the various times. Our second founder is a Providence College BA with experience in education and special education beginning with volunteering at the start of the Head Start program while in high school. Both our founders have roots in small family businesses prior to them entering their chosen professional paths. Cassbeth follows the founders roots but it is coupled with their massive large corporate backgrounds and the systems perspective.

History