Design for military operations

[Bob's World]

I get concerned any time I see the military re-purposing a fairly well understood field of study and then referring back to internal military documents to support contention. The Air Force has produced some worthy documentation on systems analysis and design. I understand the scope of what is being attempted is further afield than simple mechanical, electrical, hydraulic systems. That does not mean the fairly well understood principles from engineering design will not serve.

It seems like two field of study are being mixed; design and decision science.

http://www.operationaldesign.net/default.html

“A key distinction is that the Cold War-era use of systems engineering to solve problems no longer works. In order to effectively deal with the increased levels of complexity that we are now faced with today, we need to adopt a more robust method for understanding our environment, with all the inherent relationships, tensions and barriers to security, so to develop well thought out, adaptive solutions to the complex problems that we face.”


BG (Retired)
Huba Wass de Czege
June 18, 2008


More about understanding a problem vs a more linear systems targeting process. Why something is vs how something is. I'll need to dig up a more official definition to help clarify.