Commercial systems development in a changed world

The world has changed dramatically in the past ten years due to many political, technical, and cultural imperatives. One of the key areas both affected by these changes as well as the center of the transformations is the ability to transport people and cargo quickly, efficiently, and safely anywhere in the world. Modern jet transports represent one of the largest and most complex design problems known to modern society. The systems engineering discipline offers ways to manage size and complexity and assure resulting excellence in engineering. This paper along with companion papers examine the subject of how the most recent of these airplanes, the Boeing 777, is developed and outlines the advances that were made to the systems development process. Systems engineering concepts get tested to their limits on commercial transports. Because business issues including cost and cycle time must be met on commercial projects, this paper proposes that commercial systems engineering, especially on large jet transports, provides valuable insights and lessons learned about systems engineering as an entire discipline for many types of commercial and defence applications.