IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
IEEE Systems Council
Business Plan
Version 54, November 28, 2008
Background & Purpose
The stated purpose of an IEEE (Technical) Council, per IEEE ByLaw I-401,
Section 6 is as follows:
"6. Technical Councils. Technical Councils may be established by the Technical
Activities Board for the purpose of providing a continuing mechanism for two or
more IEEE Societies, called Member Societies, to work together in a multidisciplinary technical area of mutual interest, primarily through conferences and
publications. The procedures for organizing a new Technical Council and
operating an existing Technical Council shall be contained in the TAB Operations
Manual."
The IEEE Systems Council was formally chartered by the IEEE Board of
Directors in June 2005, and one of the principal conditions constructed by
Council founders was that the Council shall never graduate to Society level and
this has been firmly established in the Constitution. The reason for this condition
is that its synergistic effectiveness for IEEE will be lost if the council were ever to
become a Society. The proposal for forming such a Council was brought forth on
the premise that IEEE historically has dealt primarily with scientific and research
topics and issues while not covering in any comprehensive manner the strategies
in bringing the salient elements of such to fruition in an applications environment,
especially the systems and system-of-systems environment that is the
characteristics of today’s industrial and social complex. While it is accurate that
several IEEE Societies, notably the Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC) and
the Aerospace and Electronic Systems (AES) Societies had been developing
both an applications as well as systems-thinking viewpoint, they were clearly in
the minority of IEEE activities. It was felt by the founders that a larger and more
comprehensive effort was required by IEEE to enter the systems-view
environment and help bring the IEEE more into the forefront in this area.
The Council will focus on the Interaction of societies, and work to facilitate
Interactions among societies on system-level problems and applications
Need for Systems Focus
Most of the focus within the worldwide industry today is in the integrated systems
environment, although this may not be readily recognized as such since our
global definition of “systems” and “system-of-systems” has gradually evolved
without the umbrella overview that typically provides the systems-level focus. The
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
term “systems engineering” actually was brought to popular use by Western
Electric in the late 40‘s as Western Electric designed the telephone
communications system and found that a top-level engineering view was needed
to analyze requirements and allocate the technical solution to various design
groups, and then assure that the required solution had indeed been achieved via
exhaustive systems integration & test. The manufacturers of commercial aircraft
today employ such systems-level thinking, and the aircraft itself, while indeed is a
true “system-of systems” with heavy commercial, off-the-shelf content including
flight control, entertainment, navigation, communications, seating, environmental,
propulsion and similar, in fact the true system-of-systems also includes the
ground support environment and similar off-aircraft systems. And in fact, that
aircraft and its related systems are part of an overall system-of-systems called a
transportation system, which unlike the commercial aircraft which did have
umbrella systems thinking at the outset, gradually evolved as technology evolved
and provided additional components of the overall transportation system that we
enjoy today. The true “systems-level” thinking of our current transportation
systems has in fact occurred very late in the game and has only been able to
influence a small portion of the overall.
Systems focus includes the discipline of systems engineering and its attendant
components, and the Council will address this aspect as well. To underscore the
need for the engineering as well as application focus, the United States Air
Force, after exhaustive study in 2004, has found that fully 1/3 of all their
programs are at least 2 years behind schedule and 50% over budget, and the
single common contributor to this sad situation is a lack of appropriate systems
engineering. Subsequent plans are being put in place to address the issue by
strengthening systems engineering discipline and content, and introduce a
systems-level thinking in their programs.
Systems-level thinking is essential in the world today, not only for technical
systems but also for society at large, and while the Council intends to cover the
discipline of systems engineering, the intent is to address the issues and
complexities of systems-level and system-of-systems applications as well as the
attributes of the discipline itself, which are just as important. The Field of Interest
that follows delineates the basic topics, along with an expanded-population
“working” set of topics that the Council AdCom has defined as within scope.
Field of Interest
The TAB and IEEE approved Field of Interest is as follows:
“This Council integrates IEEE activities regarding aspects of multiple disciplines
and specialty areas associated with the engineering of systems. This Council
covers, but is not limited to the following:
 Systems engineering, education, standards, processes and methodologies
 Modeling, simulation and integration related to design, testing, production and
support
 Design aspects for robust design, human factors, safety, security and
usability
 Transition of products from design to production, deployment and use
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
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Quality control and system management
Program/product/project management interactions
Risk Management
Systems Architecture”
An expanded-topic listing includes the following types of coverage that would be
planned for the Council, mainly in the content of its Journal and Conference, plus
Workshops, with the following summary scope:
The summary context of the Council’s focus will be total systems effectiveness of
complex integrated systems of national and global significance targeting
individuals and organizations with multi-disciplinary interests. The following
subtopic elaborations are of interest to the Council:
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IEEE needs to address the “systems” environment; such things as behavior &
properties of systems of circuits, manufacturing aspects of circuit integration,
analytical aspects are also important as they relate to the larger view of
systems.
Systems Biology is important, control systems etc. (CSS focus) – understand
dynamics of interaction of all forms and levels of systems. The analytical
framework of control systems etc
Energy systems are important, managing energy from source to use
Mathematical models
How does systems design impact and shape society
Political impacts of systems & systems design (ethics etc)
Sustainability in energy management, including friendly disposal of spent
energy
What are system boundaries? (re: new energy systems etc)
Impact of systems engineering on other engineering fields
Communications systems
System-of-Systems Reliability
Quality
What are the benefits of “systems” thinking?
Emphasis on educational aspects
Disaster response is a system, and Katrina proved that our disaster response
system cannot handle anything above a certain complexity
Pathology of systems (failures)
Technology transfer between academia and industry (matchmaking)
Systems modeling & simulation
Decision-making on spending money for systems (example: disaster control,
terrorist threat mitigation, etc)
Provide applications as well as educational and discipline focus
Medical focus
Gaming, entertainment and similar systems
Member Societies
As of November 28, 2008 there are 15 member Societies of the Council:
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
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Aerospace & Electronic Systems Society
Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society
Product Safety Engineering Society
Instrumentation & Measurement Society
Computer Society
Communications Society
Microwave Theory & Techniques Society
Circuits & Systems Society
Oceanic Engineering Society
Computational Intelligence Society
Robotics & Automation Society
Reliability Society
Control Systems Society
Power Electronics Society
Control Systems Society
The Engineering Management Society was a member but has since become a
Council and therefore no longer eligible for membership.
Each member Society has provided at least one officially representative to the
Council, and many have provided two (senior, voting representative, and junior,
non-voting representative, per Council ByLaws). The Council roster is provided
as attachment A.
Plan & Approach
Inasmuch as a Council has no individual members, its activities are more limited
than those of a Society. There are no Chapters, for example, as in a Society, but
we do plan on establishing some Working Groups as technical activities to
coordinate our focus areas. So the main activities of the Council, in order to carry
out the objectives as stated in the Background & Purpose in support of the Field
of Interest and as presented to TAB and the Board in the formal motion to
approve, will be the following:
 Publication of a major Journal on Systems (IEEE Systems Journal)
 Conduct of an annual IEEE Systems Conference
These will be augmented with the following additional activities:
 Formation of specific technical Working Groups as technical committees
on select aspects or aggregations of systems and system-of-systems
 Conduct of Workshops and/or Symposia in the topical areas of the
Working Groups noted above
 Investigation and/or coordination of select Standards to support the Field
of Interest
o Sponsor fee-based tutorial workshops with industrial sponsorship
for attendees (i
o NOTE: The Council plans to approach US + non-US government
agencies to provide grants for workshops, symposia, etc.
 Education on Systems Thinking
o For Organizations
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
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o For Individuals
Workshops on systems engineering needs and graduate level consistency
sponsored jointly by industry and universities in a series partnered with
INCOSE.
Develop with IEEE EAB a system engineering program standard curricula
leading to accreditation and certification, with assistance from INCOSE.
Specific Learning Products
In order to successfully implement the above, the member Societies will be
asked to contribute to the intellectual property implied by the Journal,
Conference, Workshops and other activities listed above, and by aggregation
create a synergistic synthesis of science, research and application resulting in a
top-level systems content for these activities. The intent is to not only deal with
the engineering and scientific aspects of systems content, but to look at systems
in the broadest sense. As an example, we may wish to deal in such topics as
Energy Systems, or Disaster Management Systems, or Homeland Security
Systems, to name just a few.
Looking at Energy Systems as a detailed example, there are multiple aspects of
such that imply the expertise of many existing IEEE Societies – and even some
beyond that which IEEE presently addresses. Energy systems includes at least
the following:
 Research into energy methodology
 Mining of energy resources
 Methodology of Conversion of raw materials into useable energy forms
 Production of useable energy
 Storage of useable energy
 Marketing, Transport and Distribution of useable energy
 Management of mass energy systems, including the integration of
multiple energy sources
 Safety considerations of energy production, storage, distribution & use
 Disposal of depleted energy devices.
It is likely that a special issue of the Journal to focus on energy as an integrated
system would draw great interest and provide coverage of the topic as none has
done thus far; similar focus issues on different topics are also planned.
In all subsequent discussions on focus topics, it should be pointed out that many
IEEE Societies have interest in one or more of these topics. "multi-disciplinary
technical area of mutual interest" as previously quoted from the IEEE ByLaw I401 means that there is a FoI overlap. Under the planning wisdom of IEEE in
authorizing Councils, the member societies of a council are presumed to have
FoI overlaps, and a Council serves the purpose of both managing and exploiting
such overlaps to the mutual benefit of all participants.
Status as of November 2008: Two summit meetings were held with society
presidents. The focus of these summits were to discuss potential areas of
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
collaboration and specifically identify one or two areas to be explored by the
council. Two areas were identified; GEOSS and healthcare. The decision was
made to focus on health care and to establish a committee comprised of
volunteers from interested member Societies. The council will create a call for
participation and will have the call published by the societies. The primary focus
of the committee will be to define and establish a set of vehicles that will enable
the council to engage with the societies in the healthcare area. The council is
planning on two workshops in 2009 and two workshops in 2010.
IEEE Systems Journal
The IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL will be the official journal of the IEEE Systems
Council. The Council has been created to embrace systems efforts that intersect
many IEEE Societies. Due to the nature of the Council, this journal is similarly
considered inter-disciplinary for complete treatment of “systems” issues.
The Journal would publish high quality technical or non-technical applicationfocused articles, which intersect the FoI of various member societies of the
Council. Systems here may include, but not limited to, complex systems,
integrated systems of national and global significance.
The journal seeks articles in, among other areas, integration of independently
operational systems. Issues from concept, definitions, modeling, simulation,
science and theory, analysis, architecture, design, final solutions and case
studies. The Journal is interested in distributed systems development and
maintenance of real-world systems by multidisciplinary teams of scientists and
engineers.
The Journal will publish technical papers dealing with aspects and attributes for
any product that provide an intrinsic function. This includes engineering concept,
design, analysis, manufacturing, marketing, customer use, regulatory
compliance, reliability, software control, user interface, maintenance and
disposal. Systems must work within an intended environment that includes the
following partial list: industrial, residential, education, medical, transportation,
terrestrial, extra-terrestrial, manufacturing and production. Within each category
the Journal will focus on aspects such as applications, integration, process
control, human factors, management and operations, modeling or simulation, and
research.
Papers published in this journal are intended to have a wider inter-society appeal
among the Council’s family of societies.
To address the complexity and shared aspects of integrative systems across the
many domains and applications, the Journal will have focus issues on such
topics as:
o Energy, management, disaster response,
o Space exploration, manufacturing, automation,
o Information technology (including cyberspace, internet),
o Distributed information networks, transportation,
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
o Environment (including global earth observation),
o Socio-economic, biological, nano-technology, education domains, etc.
The first issue of the Journal was initially planned for the 1 st quarter of 2007,
based on Form 2 approval in February 2006, although this may be delayed due
to the deliberations of TAB Periodicals Committee that has apparently decided to
delay the formerly planned February Form 2 deliberations until June.
Status as of November 2008:
IEEE Systems Conference
The Council plans to kick off a major international Conference on Systems and
Systems Engineering in 2007. Venues being explored are Hawaii (Hyatt Regency
Waikiki), Vancouver BC (Hyatt Regency Vancouver) and Montreal (Marriott
Chateau-Champlain) and the preference is for Hawaii to attract more
international participants for the 1st year, moving to Vancouver or Montreal for the
2nd year. The reason for the North America but not continental United States is
the relative ease of entry for non-US citizens into Canada vs the US in the post9/11 environment. Hawaii is kept in the mix as an attractive venue that is easy to
reach for Asian attendees.
It is planned that with proper publication and promotion by our member Societies,
we can achieve attendance numbers of between 150 and 300 for the first event,
presuming our topic of choice is of widespread interest.
We plan to pick one or more of the sub-topics from the Field of Interest
population as the focus topic of the Conference, plus cover some of the specific
systems engineering topics that are generic. The Conference will have sustaining
tracks on systems design and systems engineering disciplines to attract a core
following, and have focus tracks to be highlighted in the Conference Theme from
the FoI elaborations presented earlier.
Status as of November 2008:
Focused Workshops and Sponsored Tutorials
The Council intends to sponsor several Workshops, Symposia and Training
sessions each year, with the following as initial planning efforts:
 Fee-based tutorial workshops with industrial sponsorship for attendees
 US + non-US government agencies will be approached to provide grants
for workshops, symposia, etc. for their specific benefit.
 General Education symposia on Systems Thinking
o For Organizations
o For Individuals
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
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Workshops on systems engineering needs and graduate level consistency
sponsored jointly by industry and universities in a series partnered with
INCOSE.
 Develop system engineering certification and accreditation jointly with
INCOSE…implies a curriculum standard.
 Sponsor a Curriculum Development Panel for consistency in SE education
o Key University Participants
o Industry Advisory Board
o Curriculum Materials
o Curriculum Definition
o Recommended Specialty Sequences
o Course Syllabi
 Specific Learning Products
 Understanding, Predicting, And Managing Systems Behavior
 Architecture And Design Considerations For System Of Systems
 System-level Risk Management
 Establishing The Business Case For Good Systems Engineering
 Systems Engineering For Small Systems
These will either be one- or two-day workshops, with 20-30 attendees planned
for the 1-day and 30-50 attendees for the 2-day Workshops. Such Workshops
have been successfully conducted in local areas by other organizations and
there is a decided market for such focused and timely topics.
In addition we plan on some 2-day Symposia on known topics of interest as
follows:
 Systems Approach To Infrastructure Protection
o 2 Days
o 60 Attendees
 Systems Thinking For Effective Epidemiology
o 2 Days
o 30 Attendees
 SysC/PMI Forum On Managing For Systems Effectiveness
o 2 Days
o 75 Attendees
 Partnering Strategies For Systems Engineering Workforce Development
o 2 days
o 75 attendees
Status as of November 2008: Workshop on Systems safety is held annually at
the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey.
A meeting was held with IEEE EAB in November 2008 to discuss certification
and accreditation. EAB will conduct a survey with industry to ascertain their
interest and willingness to participate in the development of the process and
material. The Council is also looking for an individual to lead this effort. The
Systems Council has also decided to create a distinguished Lecturer Program in
2009.This program will be in participation with AES
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
Standards
The Council will engage in Standards in two phases:
 A harmonization effort is needed to look at the myriad of standards dealing
with systems and systems engineering throughout the US and non-US
standards activities, including IEEE, ISO, EIC etc
 Address the need for standards on system-of-systems or other specific
aspects of systems development, systems thinking or systems design.
Budget & Finance
The draft Council Budget has been prepared, although this draft budget must be
updated for 2007 as Conference, Workshop and Symposia planning
commences. It is planned that Council will show surplus generation for 2006
because of Society Member dues, and for the 2nd year of full operation (2007)
because of member dues and Conference/Symposia/Workshop revenues. The
Council is sustained in its first 3 years of operation by membership dues of $5k
per member Society plus surplus from these technical activities. Once the
Journal starts producing ASPP revenue and the Conference and
Workshops/Symposia are fully under way and generating a surplus, it is planned
to reduce the dues to $2k per member Society but this is a future AdCom action.
ASPP Revenue does not become available until approximately 5 years after
commencement of publication, although Conference and Workshop/Symposia
revenue is realized in the year of conduct
The Budget for 2006 and 2007 is attached (attachment 2).
Market Served
The Markets Served within the FoI are as follows:
1) Customers (our sources of revenue)
1) Buyers of Sys C Products and Services
1) Individuals (IEEE Members and Non-IEEE Members)
2) Organizations (Governments, Academic, Industry)
2) Engineering Organizations
1) Aerospace
2) Energy
3) Earth Observation
4) etc
3) Operations Organizations
1) Disaster Response
2) Transportation
3) Insurance
4) etc
4) End Effected Communities
1) Laypeople
Council Outreach
The current Systems Council representatives are largely members of engineering
organizations, and consequently are well postured to understand the needs of
that customer base. However, the other three customer categories are not well
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IEEE Systems Council Business Plan
represented. This requires the Systems Council to conduct outreach to subject
matter experts in these three customer categories if the Council is to completely
cover the whole set of markets across our FoI. One of our first outreaches will be
to operations organizations, particularly to representatives of infrastructure
systems such as power distribution, telephone communication, transportation,
water and sewer, and emergency services systems. These systems have great
societal impact, and we intend to hold a workshop to look at the pathologies of
these interacting systems under disaster conditions.
Status as of November 2008: One of the objectives of the committee is to define
and establish a mechanism to better engage with these customer categories.
The healthcare workshops are being organized to attract practitioners a nd
industries in the healthcare area as well as IEEE society members.
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