Embedded in Systems Engineering: How One Organization Makes It Work

Moore, Michael F., Information Outlook

There is growing interest today in dedicating--or embedding--information professionals to a specific team. I'm a librarian embedded in a team, and I'd like to tell you what it's like. First, I need to give you some background about where I work.

The Company

While most of us are aware of information technology as a large part of daily life in our profession, when I started at the MITRE Corporation, systems engineering was unknown to me.

It isn't an easy subject to explain in the space of a paragraph. Systems engineering focuses on functional abstraction (describing and partitioning behavior independently of form), codification of relationships (how things fit together as a solution and what actions are needed so the solution can be realized), and (new to the discipline) the deliberate and accelerated mimicry of the processes that drive natural evolution.

Some of the issues currently being discussed include the management of large-scale businesses and enterprises and the development of systems made up of multiple, interrelated systems. So, while engineers solve problems with the appropriate mix of form, fit and function, systems engineers address how the solutions to individual engineering problems fit together. Keynote speakers at the SLA Toronto conference spoke about systems engineering subjects, such as transparency, the importance of the human mind, and finding innovation in change. This is "big picture" thinking, and MITRE works with its customers to find solutions to "big picture" problems.

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MITRE works in partnership with the Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and other U.S. …

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Publication information: Article title: Embedded in Systems Engineering: How One Organization Makes It Work. Contributors: Moore, Michael F. - Author. Magazine title: Information Outlook. Volume: 10. Issue: 5 Publication date: May 2006. Page number: 23+. © 2009 Special Libraries Association. COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group.

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