Integration of multi-discipline attributes for decision making in design of a future marine integrated power system

Advances in technology and the need to meet many interdependent competing requirements have led to complex information intensive systems that can be best managed by integrating multi-discipline, multi-attribute models for better informed decision-making. Attempts to bridge the gap between systems engineering and project management have been sought through project management methods and through imposing practices from one discipline onto another. It is proposed that a more rigorous approach to bridging this gap be investigated to better enable the optimization of objectives, collaboration, and cooperation amongst multiple disciplines. The disciplines of interest in this study are plant modeling, systems engineering, and program management. In bridging the gap, both leveraging models from the different disciplines and adopting six sigma tools and visualization techniques are investigated. Common variables and outcome-based attributes provide a mechanism to integrate multi-discipline models. Options to bring together models from each discipline include multi-disciplinary system design optimization (MSDO). To demonstrate the feasibility of integrating multi-discipline attributes on a common platform, a case study on design of a notional future marine Integrated Power System (IPS) is investigated using a modified Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration (MATE) - Capability model. This case study highlights the need to integrate other multi-discipline models to help validate specific system attributes of interest.