Rhodes, Frey Honored at INCOSE Symposium

ESD plays major role in event

By Lois Slavin, ESD Communications Director – July 23, 2005

Two members of ESD’s faculty, Prof. Daniel Frey and Dr. Donna Rhodes, were honored at the 2005 annual international symposium of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). Over 1,000 people attended the symposium, held July 10-14 in Rochester, NY. INCOSE is the international professional society for systems engineering, with over 6,800 individual members and 53 corporate members from around the globe.

ESD Senior Lecturer Dr. Donna Rhodes received the prestigious INCOSE Founders Award for 15 years of distinguished contributions to INCOSE, including serving as Technical Board Chair, Fellow, and President. Dr. Rhodes is currently INCOSE’s Director of Strategic Planning and is a member of the editorial board for the INCOSE journal, Systems Engineering, which is published by Wiley.

Daniel Frey, Robert N. Noyce Career Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems, won the best paper award in the Systems Engineering Practice and Improvement category, along with co-author Don Clausing, Bernard M. Gordon Adjunct Professor of Engineering Innovation and Practice in MIT’s department of mechanical engineering. Their paper was entitled "Four Strategies for Reliability: Improving Robustness to One-sided Failure Modes.” A longer version is scheduled for publication in System Engineering.

In addition to taking a prominent role at the symposium, ESD plays a significant leadership role in INCOSE overall. Professor Daniel Hastings, ESD Director and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems, is Chair of the INCOSE Academic Council, which provides policy level guidance to the INCOSE Board of Directors. Pat Hale, Director of the System Design and Management Fellows Program, serves as INCOSE’s Treasurer.

During the symposium, several members of the ESD community presented papers. These included:

Calculations of Flexibility in Space Systems
Daniel Hastings, R. Nilchiani, and C. Joppin

A Framework for Understanding Uncertainty and its Mitigation and Exploitation in Complex Systems
H.L. McManus, Metis Design, and Prof. Daniel Hastings

The Tradespace Exploration Paradigm
Adam Ross, ESD Ph.D. candidate, and Prof. Daniel Hastings

Four Strategies for Reliability - Improving Robustness to One-sided Failure Modes
Profs. Daniel Frey and Don Clausing

Accelerating the Development of Senior Systems Engineers
Heidi Davidz, ESD Ph.D. candidate, Prof. Deborah Nightingale, and Dr. Donna Rhodes

Agile SYSTEMS ENGINEERING versus AGILE SYSTEMS engineering
R. Haberfellner, Technical University Graz, co-authored with Prof. Oli de Weck

Modular Building Blocks for Manned Spacecraft: A Case Study for Moon and Mars Landing Systems
W.K. Hofstetter, co-authored with Prof. Ed Crawley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In addition, Pat Hale made a presentation on ESD’s System Design and Management Program.

ESD also staged an exhibit throughout the conferences, highlighting the Ph.D. research of Heidi Davidz, Adam Ross, and Jason Bartolomei and offering Symposium attendees an opportunity to learn more about ESD, SDM, and other ESD interdisciplinary academic programs and research activities.

"I often look forward to attending the INCOSE symposium for the opportunity to get industry perspectives on the "big" system engineering problems they are facing,” said Ross. “As ESD Ph.D. candidates, we want our research to be both academically rigorous and of high relevance to the outside community. INCOSE provides a forum to help bridge those two needs."

“INCOSE 2005 provided a valuable opportunity to connect with the technical
leaders from industry and government,” added Bartolomei. “The rich diversity of engineering systems-related problems presented showed an obvious need for new ideas that reinforced to me the timeliness and importance of what we are doing in ESD.”

The ESD exhibit was staffed by SDM Program Director Ted Hoppe and ESD Communications Director Lois Slavin.

INCOSE’s 2006 Symposium will be held July 9-13, 2006 in Orlando, FL. A call for papers can be found at http://www.incose.org/symp2006/