Systems Engineering in Aerospace & Defense: History and Future Trends

System engineering as a discipline emerged out of a need to manage the development of increasingly complex systems in the defense industry. Capabilities have since continued to evolve, as have the systems being designed. With this evolution comes the need for the systems engineering to adapt and evolve as well. While other areas have started to use variations of the systems engineering process as well, the aerospace & defense industry remain central to its application and will be the area of focus. This paper considers the history of systems engineering to provide context and outlines key work done in the field. Having developed this understanding, future trends are extrapolated and the implications of the findings to college education and successful implementation of the discipline in industry are discussed.