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August 7,
2009
The journal Systems
Engineering has given its 2008 Best Paper Award
to ESD research scientist Dr. Adam Ross, and co-authors
ESD Senior Lecturer Dr. Donna Rhodes and ESD Professor Daniel
Hastings. The paper, "Defining
Changeability: Reconciling Flexibility, Adaptability, Scalability,
Modifiability, and Robustness for Maintaining Lifecycle
Value" appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of the journal.
Systems Engineering, the scientific
journal of the International Council on Systems Engineering
(INCOSE), is considered the primary vehicle for disseminating
scholarship to practitioners and academics in the field
of systems engineering.
The award was announced at the closing plenary
session of the 19th Annual International Symposium of INCOSE
on June 13, 2009 in Singapore.
Extending from the doctoral work of Dr. Ross,
the paper describes how designing and maintaining systems
in a dynamic contemporary environment requires a rethinking
of how systems provide value to stakeholders over time.
Developing either changeable or classically robust systems
are approaches to promoting value sustainment. But, ambiguity
in definitions across system domains has resulted in an
inability to specify, design, and verify to ilities that
promote value sustainment. In order to develop domain-neutral
constructs for improved system design, the definitions of
flexibility, adaptability, scalability, modifiability, and
robustness are shown to relate to the core concept of “changeability,”
described by three aspects: change agents, change effects,
and change mechanisms. Designing changeable systems allows
for the possibility of maintaining value delivery over a
system lifecycle, in spite of changes in contexts, thereby
achieving value robustness.
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