Systems Engineering and Software Engineering

This chapter is about bridging the gap between systems engineering and software engineering and increasing the synergy when physical systems engineers (PhSEs) and software systems engineers (SwSEs) work together to develop complex software-enabled systems that include physical elements (natural and/or engineered) plus digital devices and the associated software. It provides characteristics and examples of the three categories of systems (physical, computational, and cyber-physical) and the roles played by systems engineers and software engineers for each category. Each discipline adapts the methods developed by the other discipline to accommodate the needs of that discipline, the domains of application, and the current project. The chapter also indicates some of the common attributes shared by PhSEs and SwSEs. In order to effectively communicate and work with SwSEs, they do need to understand the nature of software, the resulting processes and procedures used by software engineers, and the constraints under which software engineers design and construct software.