Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering

Degree Requirements

Master of Engineering: 30 Credits or 10 Courses

Students pursuing this option must complete six core courses and four technical electives from those listed above. There is no research or thesis required for this degree.

Graduate Certificate in Engineering: 12 Credits or 4 Courses

Students pursuing a graduate certificate must complete the following courses:

• ENSE621, Systems Engineering Concepts, and Processes: A Model-Based Approach
• ENSE622, System Trade-off Analysis, Modeling, and Simulation
• ENSE623, System Development, Verification, and Validation

​One of the courses listed below:

• ENSE624, Human Factors in Systems Engineering
• ENSE626, System Life Cycle Analysis, and Risk Management

Courses

ENPM808J Design of Experiments (3 Credits) | Elective

Fall 2024 Class time/details on ELMS Tony Barber

This course covers how to plan, design, and conduct experiments in such a way that the statistical analysis results in valid and objective conclusions. Students will learn and select from a variety of experimental designs while drawing valid conclusions from specific experiments. Both design and statistical analysis issues are discussed across the engineering lifecycle, explicitly in support of verification and technical decision analysis. This includes analysis of new product design and development, process development, and manufacturing process improvement. All experiments conducted by engineers and scientists are designed experiments. Some of them are poorly designed and others are well-designed. Well-designed experiments enhance your ability to obtain reliable, valid results faster, easier, and with fewer resources; reduce development lead time for new processes and products; and improve system and process performance with increased reliability.

ENPM808K Advanced Systems Architecting (3 Credits) | Elective

In this course, we examine the application of architecture from its highest, enterprise levels where it assists with the alignment of business and mission objectives to engineering realization, to the middle levels where it forms the crucial linkages between system context, system, and system element definition and structure, and to the fine-scale wherein it mediates implementation design and allocation processes for material structures, organizational elements, human roles, and tasks, services, and microservices. Running through this spectrum of application are standardized architectural frameworks and best practices that represent decades, and in some cases, centuries of thought towards the fundamental categorization and organization of the built and organized world.

ENPM808V Quality Management Systems and Lean Six Sigma (3 Credits) | Elective

This course covers Systems Engineering approaches for creating optimal and robust engineering systems and for quality assurance. It provides an overview of the important tools for quality analysis and quality management of engineering systems. These tools are commonly used in companies and organizations. Focus is placed on the ISO 9000 certification, six-sigma systems, and Deming Total Quality Management to examine how high-quality standards are sustained and customer requirements and satisfaction are ensured. The Taguchi method for robust analysis and design is covered and applied to case studies.

ENSE621 Systems Engineering Concepts and Processes: A Model-Based Approach (3 Credits) | Core

An INCOSE-oriented introduction to model-based systems engineering. Provides an overview of systems engineering concepts, processes, and methods, with a particular focus on the development of stakeholder and system requirements; characteristics of well-written requirements; the use of SysML software tools to develop system- and element-level architectures; and the relationship between requirements and architecture. Architecture-related topics include specification and visualization of system attributes, behavior, and interfaces. Other topics include acquisition and development life cycle models; operational concepts and use cases; requirements and design traceability; analysis, modeling, and simulation; systems engineering management; risk management; configuration management; systems-of-systems; and system complexity. The course includes a class project in which teams of 3-5 students use SysML to develop stakeholder requirements, system requirements, and logical system architecture for an engineered system of interest to them and then perform a design trade-off analysis for some aspect of the system.

ENSE622 System Trade-off Analysis, Modeling, and Simulation (3 Credits) | Core

This course continues the model-based approach to systems engineering by introducing students to a variety of mathematical modeling and simulation techniques used to perform system performance, optimization, and trade-off analyses. Topics include linear and integer programming; state machine models of finite state machines; development of simple intelligent agents; modeling Markov processes; queueing theory; multi-objective trade-off analyses; decision trees; stochastic (Monte Carlo) simulation, linear regression, some predictive analytic techniques; and an introduction to control theory. Mathematical models and simulations are developed and executed using MATLAB. The course includes a class project in which students solve a problem of interest to them using one or more of the techniques addressed in class.

ENSE623 System Development, Verification, and Validation (3 Credits) | Core

This course completes the ENSE621, ENSE622 sequence. It covers system simulation development and a variety of verification and validation topics. It addresses development testing and operational testing; test methodologies; the planning of test programs and Test and Evaluation Master Plans (TEMPs); the planning and execution of tests; and the writing of test plans and test reports. Topics include verification methods; specification-based testing; test verification matrices; model-based verification; model checking and other formal approaches to verification; design of experiments; performance testing; reliability testing; usability/human factors testing; and other types of testing. The course includes a class project in which teams of 3-5 students: develop requirements for a simulation that supports a system analysis of interest (the user need); develop the simulation (in MATLAB); verify that it meets its requirements; and validate that it may be used to support the analysis of interest.

ENSE624 Human Factors in Systems Engineering (3 Credits) | Core

This course covers the general principles of human factors, or ergonomics as it is sometimes called. Human Factors (HF) is an interdisciplinary approach toward dealing with issues related to people in systems. It focuses on consideration of the characteristics of human beings in the design of systems and devices of all kinds. It concerns itself with the assignment of appropriate functions for humans and machines – whether the people serve as operators, maintainers, or users of the system or device. The goal of HFs is to achieve compatibility in the design of interactive systems of people, machines, and environments to ensure their effectiveness, safety, and ease of use.

ENSE626 System Life Cycle Analysis and Risk Management (3 Credits) | Core

This course covers topics related to estimating the costs and risks incurred through the lifetimes of projects, products and systems. In addition, treatment is given to methods that determine the drivers of costs and risks and then propose the most effective alternatives to reducing them. The course covers relevant analytic tools from probability and statistics and also important managerial and organizational concepts. Extensive use will be made of case studies and examples from industry and government.

Online Programs

#6 Online Graduate Engineering Programs - U.S. News and World Report Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs

U.S. Graduate Programs

#19 Graduate Engineering - U.S. News and World Report 2023 Best Engineering Graduate Programs

Specialties:

• #15 Aerospace Engineering
• #16 Electrical Engineering; #15 Computer Engineering
• #17 Mechanical Engineering

Entrepreneurship Rankings

• #7 Undergraduate Program
• #18 Graduate Program

Princeton Review's Top 50 Schools For Entrepreneurship Programs"