Julia (Allmond) Murray
1.0
Background .......................................................................................................... 3
2.0
Education and Employment .................................................................................. 4
3.0
Goals .................................................................................................................... 7
3.1
Objectives .......................................................................................................... 7
4.0
Course Work ......................................................................................................... 8
4.1
Portfolio Of Course Work ................................................................................... 9
4.1.1
SYSE 591: Systems Engineering Approach ................................................ 9
4.1.2
SYSE 575: Reducing Risk in Decision Making ............................................ 9
4.1.3
EAS 561: Reliability Engineering ............................................................... 10
4.1.4
SYSE 590: Integrative Workshop .............................................................. 11
4.1.5
SYSE 573: Requirements Engineering ...................................................... 11
4.1.6
SYSE 510MP: Systems Engineering Management ................................... 12
4.1.7
EMGT 540: Operations Research in Engineering and Technology
Management .......................................................................................................... 13
4.1.8
SYSE 561: Logistics Engineering .............................................................. 14
4.1.9
SYSC 514: System Dynamics ................................................................... 15
4.2
SYSE 506 Masters Project ............................................................................... 16
4.2.1
Media Study on Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) .................... 16
4.2.2
Systems Science Program Model .............................................................. 17
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
When I started my masters degree at Portland State University I had been working in industry for about 10 years. My undergraduate degree is in Mechanical Engineering but when I started work out of university I took a role as a Project Engineer on the Atlas
Program for Rocketdyne, where we were the technical interface with the customer on the Atlas Rocket Engine, which was the start my work experience as a System
Engineer. As time progressed each additional role that I have had at Rocketdyne has been within the umbrella of Systems Engineering. In 2006 I decided that I wanted more knowledge and exposure to other areas of Systems Engineering so I looked into various
System Engineering Master Programs. The major thing that drew me to Portland State
University's program was that it covered or gives the student the opportunity to cover all areas of SE and not be topic specific, i.e. one program I looked at was heavily architecture focused.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Graduated from University of Michigan in 1997 with a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical
Engineering.
Employed by Rocketdyne since July 1997 and in my duration with the company they have been owned by a couple different companies; Rockwell International, Boeing, and
Pratt & Whitney.
Professional Experience:
J2-X System Engineering & Integration Team
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR), Canoga Park, CA
 Managed the Mechanical and Functional Vehicle Interfaces between PWR and
NASA. o Based on System Level Requirements negotiate engine interface o specifications between PWR and NASA that will benefit the whole vehicle system.
Maintain and release Interface Documents to track assumptions, resolutions and status of each interface.
787 Hamilton Sundstrand Electrical Subsystems Team
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Canoga Park, CA
 Customer liaison between Hamilton Sundstrand Rockford, IL and The Boeing

Company Everett, WA
Electrical Load Management On-site Team Lead o o o
Lead a team of three Hamilton Sundstrand on-site electrical engineers.
Responsible for updating and reporting on all activities back to Load
Management Lead in Rockford, IL.
Generated Use Cases from customer’s functional requirements to aid in o software generation in Rockford.
Supported closure of actions with customer to ensure the simulation modeling team in Rockford met schedule.
737 Airplane Team
Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Seattle, WA
 Systems Engineering Risk & Opportunities Manager o Responsible for updating and reporting on all active Program and Integrated

Product Team risks and opportunities
Systems Engineer Generalist o Generated presentations of Preliminary Design Review objectives and expectations for 737CL, & 777 and Critical Design Review objectives and o o expectations for 737NG
Responsible for updating and releasing Requirement Specification
Assisted Nitrogen Generation System (NGS) 737 Model focal in coordination of the 737 Next Gen and Classic weekly status reviews o o o
Laid out a 737 Classic project schedule to track closure of activities to support a Critical Design Review milestone
Generated drawing trees and detailed parts lists for the NGS on 737NG
Conducted a variability review on the 737CL fleet to determine the number of configurations necessary for an NGS retrofit design
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
High Frequency Moderisation (HFMoD)
Boeing Australia, Brisbane, QLD
 Functional and Physical Configuration Audit Lead o Lead a team of eight auditors to complete the final set of subsystem and o system level audits to support delivery of High Frequency Modernisation
System to the Commonwealth of Australia.
Assisted Systems Engineering Manager in coordination of the team, supporting all program meetings and execution of urgent issues to ensure
 o o acceptable delivery of the system.
Supported closure of actions with customer to obtain subsystem acceptance certificates.
Developed new processes to assist in the system delivery
Systems Engineer Generalist o Laid out a detailed project schedule to track closure of all open CORE o activities to support acceptance of delivered system.
Generated a detailed team schedule to meet the System Functional Review o milestone
Coordinated and managed the System Functional Review activity:


Generated presentation of SFR objectives and expectations
Established story board charts and initial set of review charts for each

 area
Organized administrative details of SFR and delivery of information to customer
Oversaw development of systems engineering artifacts - ensuring o
 artifacts completed on schedule
Generated and tracked review metrics
Coordinated with System Engineering Specialty Leads to track and manage artifacts and team metrics
Space Launch Initiative (SLI Program)
Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power, Canoga Park, CA
 Project Management
 o o
Used Integrated Master Plan to plan and manage the systems engineering
Integrated Master Schedule
Provided input to the Earned Value Management System and variance reporting. o Assisted Systems Engineering Manager in coordination of the team, supporting all program meetings and execution of urgent issues.
Risk Management o o
Responsible for updating and reporting on 100 active program risks
Managed monthly team meetings
 o o o
Generated and presented monthly and quarterly Risk Management status charts to NASA,
Created and delivered Risk Management monthly reports, formal contractual submittal.
Requirement Management o Synthesized system requirements from multiple vehicle architectures, o proposal information, and a draft customer (NASA) requirements document.
Authored multiply top level requirement specifications.
Created review charts and defined system requirements for System
Requirements Review (SRR).
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Julia (Allmond) Murray

 o Created and presented System Requirements and Verification charts to
NASA and Rocketdyne at Program Design Review (PDR).
Proposal Coordinator o Developed statements of work and cost estimates for 3 areas: system engineering planning and management, risk management, and requirements and verification.
Systems Engineer Configuration Control o Responsible to reviewed, routed and released 15 system engineering documents.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Systems Engineering focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, then continuing with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem: Operations;
Performance; Test; Manufacturing; Cost & Schedule; Support; and Disposal. Systems
Engineering integrates all the disciplines and specialty groups into a team effort forming a structured development process that proceeds from concept to production to operation. Many of us already practice systems engineering, but call it something else: design or development of product, process, and service. This course of study will enable the engineer to function in an interdisciplinary team and apply their area of engineering specialty toward the development of a product, process, or service.




Improve ability to engineer complex products, processes, or services.
Develop understanding of basic systems concepts and their application to the engineering life-cycle.
Develop understanding of key systems engineering skills, including team building, communication, synthesis & creativity, problem solving, management of time and resources, database management, and life-cycle viewpoints.
Build on existing knowledge and project experiences by providing additional domain specialization or project management tied to systems engineering skills.
The goal of my studies in the Masters of Engineering Degree in Systems Engineering is to improve and develop my skills and knowledge in the field of Systems Engineering.
The traits an engineer brings to a development effort, that have the most impact on how effectively the engineer contributes to the project are: skills, knowledge and aptitude.
Skills are learned in school or through training. Skills represent the ability of an engineer to perform a task or engineering activity, at a given moment in time. In general, and engineer’s skills level peaks after formal education and tend to decline over time, unless there is an active effort to maintain the skill level. Skills must be practiced regularly in order to be effectively maintained and applied by the engineer.
A goal of SYSE 590 is to apply the principles of systems engineering to create a comprehensive study plan that meets the needs of the student and fulfills the requirements of the Systems Engineering Masters program.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
The core classes of the systems engineering program provide a foundational understanding of general systems engineering concepts. The elective course work provides an opportunity to customize the program with topics that are of interest to the student, as a form of process tailoring. The integrative workshop serves as a review, to ensure that the learning plan is complete and will meet the needs of the student. The master’s project is a demonstration of the concepts of systems engineering in a real world application.
Table 1 Course Work
Term Year
Credits
Core Required Elective Courses Completed
SYSE 591: Systems Engineering
Approach
SYSE 575: Reducing Risk in Decision
Making
EAS 561: Reliability Engineering
SYSE 590: Integrative Workshop
SYSE 573: Requirements Engineering
SYSE 510MP: Systems Engineering
Management
EMGT 540: Operations Research in
Engineering and Technology
Management
SYSE 561: Logistics Engineering
SYSC 514: System Dynamics
SYSE 506: Masters Project
SYSE 506: Masters Project
SYSE 506: Masters Project
TOTAL:
Fall 2007
Winter 2008
Spring 2008
Fall 2008
Spring 2009
Fall 2009
Winter 2010
Spring 2010
Spring 2011
Fall 2011
Winter 2012
Spring 2012
4
16
4
4
4
3
3
3
13
4
4
4
4
16
4
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Engineering of complex hardware, software systems encompasses quantitative methods to understand vague problem statements, determine what a proposed product/system must do (functionality), generate measurable requirements, decide how to select the most appropriate solution design, integrate the hardware and software subsystems and test the finished product to verify it satisfies the documented requirements. Additional topics that span the entire product life cycle include interface management and control, risk management, tailing of process to meet organizational and project environments, configuration management, test strategies and trade-off studies.
SYSE 591 is an introduction to the development and engineering of complex systems and provides an in depth explanations of what Systems Engineering is, in terms of its concepts and supporting tools and applications. This class provided the beginning knowledge and skills necessary to engineer complex, multi-disciplinary systems; as well as serves as a cornerstone course for the Systems Engineering program. SYSE 591 provided me with the interdisciplinary knowledge and skills necessary to define the system life cycle and the particulars of stakeholder involvement; cover critical tools and methods for implementing Systems Engineering; and explain the carious structure and tasks of the systems process.
Professor: Ike Eisenhauer
Text: Making Hard Decisions: An Introduction to Decision Analysis (2 nd Ed)
Clemen; ISBN 0534260349
Risk Modeling for Determining Value and Decision Making
Koller; ISBN 1584881674
SYSE 575 examined the concepts, techniques and tools for managing risk and making decision as key components of the systems engineering process. In this course, risk connotes a measure of the probability and severity of an undesired event. This course began with an overview of the risk management (identifying, assessing, monitoring, and mitigating) and decision process. Differences between mission critical and non-mission critical programmatic risk will be emphasized. Other topics include the limits of expected value-based risk analysis, decision making strategies such a max/min, min/max and regrets. Formal methods in risk analysis, elementary decision analysis and decision trees, multi-objective decision making, pareto techniques, optimality, and trade-off analysis will be covered. Risk and decision techniques will be contrasted with the interfacing processes of program management and software engineering, from both the government (DOD) and industrial perspectives.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Professor: Ike Eisenhauer
Text: Practical Reliability Engineering (4 th Ed)
O’Connor; ISBN 0470844639
Reliability Engineering aims to apply engineering techniques to eliminate of reduce the chance of system failure. Reliability is a measure that depends on time. A common measure of reliability is described as mean time to failure (MTTF) for non-repairable systems and mean time between failures (MTBF) for repairable systems.
The Weibull distribution is one of the most useful probability density functions in reliability engineering because the parameters can be adjusted to fit a wide range of experimental failure data. The Weibull reliability function is the probability that a system or component has not failed after time t
. The function has a range between 0 and 1.
The Weibull form of the reliability function is one of the easier functions to solve.
Reliability engineering must focus on stressing the system and make an effort to generating failures. The goal is to identify reliability problems as early in the development process as possible. Accelerated life testing (HALT) and combined environmental stress testing (CERT) are experimental techniques to achieve this goal.
The reliability engineer may need to convince the project team that generating failures in the proper context is a good thing.
Reliability Management as it relates to the role of a systems Engineer: Systems
Engineering is defined as a branch of engineering whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process to ensure that customer and stakeholder's needs are satisfied in a high quality, trustworthy, cost efficient and schedule compliant manner throughout a system's entire life cycle, from development to operation to disposal. This process is usually comprised of the following seven tasks: State the problem,
Investigate alternatives, Model the system, Integrate, Launch the system, Assess performance, and Re-evaluate.
Throughout each task it is important that reliability management is performed. Reliability engineering is necessary to ensuring that a system will perform its intended functions when operated in a specified manner for a specified length of time. Reliability engineering is performed throughout the entire life cycle of a system, including development, test, production and operation.
As the system engineer you need to understand the requirements, analysis being performed, testing and encourage the use of modeling and simulation to validate assumptions or theories on systems and the interactions within them.
Use of these methods allows for early detection of possible failures. At the same time, decisions made at the beginning of a project whose consequences are not clearly understood can have enormous implications later in the life of a system, and it is the task of the modern systems engineer to explore these issues and make critical decisions.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Integrative Workshop is the application of systems engineering principles to the planning of the study plan for the systems engineering master’s program. The workshop is a formal review to ensure that the requirements of the program are met.
The workshop provides an opportunity to develop an integrated study plan tailored to the specific needs and goals of the student.
Integrative Workshop serves as a portfolio of the student’s work. Samples of work from each course are collected to demonstrate that the student understands the curriculum.
Thus, the portfolio is a living document for the duration of the masters program.
The e-portfolio is a method to keep the advisor informed on what classes have been taken and which classes are planned; provides the student with a place to provide feedback on class topics, courses, and the program; and provides an opportunity to use systems thinking and systems engineering approach on an educational system.
Professor: Dorothy McKinney
Text: No Text book; all information available on-line as was method of course delivery.
Requirements Engineering provides the knowledge and skills necessary to translate needs and priorities into system requirements, and develop derived requirements, which together form the starting point for engineering of complex hardware/software systems.
The student develops an understanding of the larger context in which requirements for a system are developed, and learn about trade-offs between developing mission needs or market opportunities first versus assessing available technology first. We learned techniques for translating needs and priorities into an operational concept and then into specific functional and performance requirements. The student assessed and improved the usefulness of requirements, including such aspects as correctness, completeness, consistency, measurability, testability, and clarity of documentation. Case studies, many involving software-intensive systems, were used. Prerequisite: SYSE 591 Systems
Engineering Approach or SYSC 513 Systems Approach or Consent of Instructor.
Requirement Engineering is arguably one of the most important parts of systems engineering; without proper requirements the project will mostly likely fail, be cancelled or will significantly overrun cost budget, due to lack of understand of the project between stakeholders.
For this class the student was required to pick a system and develop a requirements set that demonstrate understanding and competence to the professor. Due to my work constraints I decided to choose a topic of my own personal interest, a commercial kitchen gas stove.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Professor: John Blyler
Text: Essentials of Project and Systems Engineering Management (3rd Ed) by Howard Eisner
This course covered the essentials of systems engineering management and its critical interconnection to program/project management. Systems engineering is the integration of several engineering fields into an efficient and effective process for the overall technical management of programs and development of systems and products.
Students gained detailed knowledge in management techniques applicable to activities within Systems Engineering, including trade-off studies, technical performance measurement, cost-effective process tailoring, technical reviews and audits, and others.
Several case studies projects will be studied throughout the course to illustrate key concepts and management techniques.
Given the course work chapter 7 stood out the most in the class: Chapter 7. The Thirty
Elements of Systems Engineering
This chapter described the fundamental elements of systems engineering and its management in the form of thirty elements specific tasks to be accomplished by the systems engineering team. Prior to covering the thirty elements two systems engineering perspectives were discussed. 1 Mil-Std-499B a military standard and 2. The
NASA Mission Design Process.
The military standard has 4 main features:
1. Requirements Analysis
2. Functional Analysis/allocation
3. Synthesis
4. System analysis and control
NASA’s Engineering Management Council has produced the engineering guide to conceptual design, mission analysis and definition phases of a system. The first three phases are:
1. The conceptual design process: Presphase A
2. The mission analysis process: Phase A
3. The definition process: Phase B
The Elements of Systems engineering:
• 7.3.1 Needs, Goals, and Objectives
• 7.3.2 Mission Engineering
• 7.3.3 Requirements Analysis and Allocation
• 7.3.4 Functional Analysis and Decomposition
• 7.3.5 Architecture Design and Synthesis
• 7.3.6 Alternatives Analysis and Evaluation
• 7.3.7 Technical Performance Measurement
• 7.3.8 Life-Cycle Costing
• 7.3.9 Risk Analysis
• 7.3.10 Concurrent Engineering
• 7.3.11 Specification Development
• 7.3.12 Hardware, Software, and Human Engineering
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
• 7.3.13 Interface Control
• 7.3.14 Computer Tool Evaluation and Utilization
• 7.3.15 Technical Data Management and Documentation
• 7.3.16 Integrated Logistics Support (ILS)
• 7.3.17 Reliability, Maintainability, Availability (RMA)
• 7.3.18 Integration
• 7.3.19 Verification and Validation
• 7.3.20 Test and Evaluation
• 7.3.21 Quality Assurance and Management
• 7.3.22 Configuration Management
• 7.3.23 Specialty Engineering
• 7.3.24 Preplanned Product Improvement (P3I)
• 7.3.25 Training
• 7.3.26 Production and Deployment
• 7.3.27 Operations and Maintenance (O&M)
• 7.3.28 Operations Evaluation and Reengineering
• 7.3.29 System Disposal
• 7.3.30 Systems Engineering Management
I found chapter 7 very helpful in the way the authored laid out the 30 elements of systems engineering. It seems that it doesn’t matter which approach to systems engineering is used, all the elements need to be covered.
There was a section of the week’s reading that I would like to quote related to the level of depth and knowledge that is required to be a “good” systems engineer.
“With respect to these thirty elements, not only must the CSE master each and every one of them, he or she must also understand the interrelationship between these elements. This is an enormously challenging assignment that requires both a broad and deep commitment to this discipline as well as its supporting knowledge base.”
Professor: Tim Anderson
Text: Spreadsheet Modeling & Decision Analysis: A Practical Introduction to
Management Science, Revised
Resource optimization is studied through mathematical programming. Emphasis was placed on applying linear programming, and goal programming to engineering management decisions. Problem formulation, mathematical model building, basic principles behind the Simplex algorithm, and multiple objective linear optimization via goal programming were included in the course. Post-optimality analysis was studied from the viewpoint of technology management. And the course included a term project involving a real-life problem.
Operations research is a tool to be used through out the systems engineering approach.
It can be used in the beginning of the life cycle to help manage risk and conducting
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Julia (Allmond) Murray trade studies or later in the manufacturing phase to helping to solve scheduling conflicts or to help size the factory. I found this class very interesting and helpful, because it showed me how to setup the models using common software tools like excel for various situations. I had always wanted to understand more in the area of modeling and decision analysis and this class was very helpful in expanding my knowledge.
Professor: David Carswell
Texts: Logistics Engineering And Management, 6E
Blanchard, Benjamin S.,
ISBN10: 0-13-142915-9
NASA Systems Engineering Handbook
NASA/SP-2007-6105 Rev1
Optional:
The Box: How The Shipping Container Made The World Smaller And The World
Economy Bigger
Marc Levinson, ISBN10: 0691136408
The theory and practice of logistics planning, implementation, and management, is an ideal landscape for the application of systems engineering. Logistics infrastructures are systems composed of a mix of hardware, software, people, processes, and other components, and as such, all but the most trivial are inherently complex and interdisciplinary in nature.
The emphasis of the course was on the role of logistics in a system life cycle, from concept to disposal, the design of logistics subsystems and logistics-oriented systems, and the application of techniques and best practices associated with systems engineering, including topics in reliability, maintainability, supportability, sustainability, and other “-ilities” to the logistics problem domain.
I took this class because I wanted to better understand what “logistics engineering” meant and how it should be implemented on a project. In many areas of the class I was familiar with the terms and concepts being applied, but what I was lacking what having actually run the cases/problems myself to come up with the values that are used to determine reliability, maintainability, supportability, sustainability, and other “-ilities” to the logistics problem domain. I found this class useful in that I learned this aspect of
Systems Engineering so am more knowledgeable when discussion these topics with our customers.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Professor: Wayne Wakeland
Text: John Sterman, Business Dynamics, Irwin McGraw Hill, 2000
Vensim PLE software from Ventana Systems, Inc., (SW and manuals may be downloaded for free).
This course introduces the study of the dynamic behavior of continuous systems that contain feedback. Vensim was the primary simulation language used in the course, and
"Lecture" materials were provided on the web. Class time was used to assist students in carrying out various labs to reinforce the primary concepts.
The main focus of the class was building computer models of feedback systems and using the models to study the dynamic behavior of the modeled system in order to enhance understanding, predict how the system might behave under different circumstances, or find ways to improve the "performance" of the system. Such models are often used for forecasting, planning, and process analysis in business systems; for studying growth and homeostatic processes in various scientific disciplines; and for studying feedback control systems in engineering.
The models are continuous in nature, and are expressed mathematically as a set of differential equations for various "state" variables. These equations are numerically integrated by the software package in order to simulate behavior over time. Majority of the time was spent learning how to formulate and explore the dynamic behavior of such models.
I loved this class! I waited to take this class to the very end because I didn’t think I would do very good; modeling is not my area of expertise. Once I got into the class material I found the class very useful in solving problems, that is if the method is implemented correctly. I really liked the text book associated with this class; it has some great examples of how modeled solutions can have a great impact on future resutls, both good and bad. In many cases the negative impact was a result of not understanding the problem that was being modeling and not taking the right amount of time to verify and validate the model. I enjoyed this class so much that I offered to help
Dr. Wayne Wakeland on some project for my master project.
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
I completed two different items for my master project, a media study on Model Based
Systems Engineering and a Systems Science Program Model.
I did a media study on MBSE because I wanted to better understand what it was, what are the methodologies and tools, who is working, both companies and universities, to implement MBSE and where we are headed in the future.
The MBSE media study covered the following topics:
1.0 Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Initiative
2.0 MBSE Definitions & Advantages
3.0 INCOSE Systems Engineering Vision 2020
4.0 MBSE Methodologies
5.0 MBSE Modeling Language Standards
6.0 MBSE Software Tools
7.0 Companies Working To Implement MBSE
8.0 Universities
9.0 DOD Systems 2020 Vision
10.0 Lean Engineering
11.0 Look Ahead Where We Are Going?
Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)
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Julia (Allmond) Murray
Worked with Dr. Wakeland to generate a model to add fidelity to the proposed projection of Student Credit Hours as the Systems Science Program (SYSC) is moved within College of Liberal Arts & Science (CLAS).
The model shows both a top-down and a bottoms-up of SCH to give confidence that the proposed revenue/cost ratio is achievable given future constraints that were flowed down.
Originally we were going to use a Vensim Model but as we started to lay the model we decided a spreadsheet model was the better tool to use for our situation. Several of the numbers used in the model were pulled from Dr. Wayne original Vensim Model and other numbers were pulled from the original business plan that was generated in 2010.
Once the model was up and running additional changes were made to the model to realign with the current projections of available facility and funding limitations.
Systems Science Program Model l
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