A 4‐Box Development Model for Complex Systems Engineering

Abstract Over the years, much Systems Engineering effort has been focused on making development activities predictable. Yet, with increasing system complexity, methodology improvements have a hard time keeping up. In this paper, we argue that there is a need to ensure that development methodology is flexible and that development models must be crafted for ensuring that an organization has many options open if parts of the development activities becomes delayed. This paper introduces a development model that provides the desired level of flexibility. The underlying case is that of fighter aircraft development. The dual‐Vee model is used as a baseline, weaknesses in that model are identified and the models developed within Saab Aeronautics for fighter aircraft development is introduced and illustrated. The key element highlighted in the paper is that in order to ensure flexibility, development activities has to be asynchronous with activities integrating product configurations. Lessons learned are identified and the applicability of the proposed models are discussed.