Systems Architecting Heuristics for Systems Engineering Management and Embedded Systems Engineering

Software development for United States Air Force (USAF) weapon systems is a "right here, right now" prize captured by those who can rapidly develop requirements and deliver a quality product. The Air Logistics Centers (ALCs) located at Tinker Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma, Warner-Robins AFB, Georgia, and Hill AFB, Utah develop requirements utilizing 3400 funding to capture this prize. The ALCs identify these requirements as corrective maintenance or perfective and adaptive maintenance. Colleen A. Calimer and John L. BeVier introduce the concept of the "Embedded Systems Engineer" in their 2004 INCOSE paper "Embedded Systems Engineering: Managing Systems Complexity, Change, and Crises". They present the case that insightful management and utilization of the "embedded" systems engineer is the critical component of successful engineering activity in the dynamic systems environment. This paper applies systems architecting heuristics to systems engineering management to suggest that "embedded" systems engineering is functionally beneficial to the operational demands of maintaining the capability of the Avionics Flight Software (AFS) of the B-1B strategic bomber weapon system.