While there are no obligatory prerequisites for enrolling in "Quantitative Methods in Systems Engineering," having the following suggested career experience may make the course more relevant:
- Bachelor's degree
- Minimum Career Experience: 1-2 years of work experience in a technical field
- Average Career Experience: 5-15 years of work experience
- Past experience with modeling in any domain (computation, physics-based simulation, testing, etc.) can be helpful but is not required.
- No management experience is required, but some course materials will touch on teamwork and general management topics as relevant to architecture and complex projects.
Incoming learners are expected to be familiar with the following concepts related to systems engineering and modeling:
- Systems Engineering "V" model
- Product Development Reference Models (Stage-Gate Reviews, Waterfall, Spiral, Agile)
- Requirements engineering and management, including clear and concise requirements development
- Customer needs identification and voice of the customer analysis
- Spreadsheet software (such as Excel) and basic spreadsheet modeling
Preferred familiarity or experience (not obligatory) includes:
- Early-stage product development
- Product lifecycle, including aftermarket and maintenance
- Functional analysis
- Basic concept development methods like the Morphological Matrix and Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
- Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)
- Integrating or connecting models together
- Verification and validation processes
Having these backgrounds or experiences will help learners better engage with the course material, but they are not strict prerequisites for enrollment.