Systems Engineering & Optimization

Requirements, architecture, trade studies, and linear, integer, and nonlinear optimization — from coordinating parts to architecting systems.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 3-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Intermediate
Location: Scheduled on demand · on-site at your facility or a regional venue
Date(s): Not yet scheduled for open enrollment. Get notified when it is, or book it privately for your team.
Includes: Certificate of Completion · printed slide binder · take-home reference text

Get notified when this course is scheduled

One email when dates are set. Or skip the wait: run it as a private cohort, on-site at your plant.

Talk to us about a private cohort
  • One email, no sequence
  • Never shared
  • Reply within one business day

Faculty

Faculty details for this seminar will be announced with the full schedule.

Fees

Early: $1,895 (payment 4+ weeks ahead)
Standard: $2,095 (check/ACH) · $2,165 (card)

Group discount: $200 off per attendee for 3+ from the same organization.

Also Available

  • Corporate on-site delivery at your facility
  • Private cohort sessions
  • Digital curriculum licensing

Seminar Overview

Complex products fail at the system level, not the component level — and system-level decisions are where the money is won or lost. Built from MIT OpenCourseWare's systems-engineering and optimization curriculum, this seminar teaches the discipline of engineering systems: requirements, architecture, trade studies, and mathematical optimization (linear, integer, and nonlinear programming) to allocate and make better decisions under constraints. It upgrades program leaders and senior engineers from coordinating parts to architecting systems.

Ideal Learner

  • Program and system architects on complex products
  • Senior engineers leading trade studies and requirement flow-down
  • Engineering managers optimizing designs, budgets, and schedules
  • Systems and integration engineers across disciplines
  • Engineers who must make defensible allocation decisions

Learning Objectives

  • Speak the systems-engineering process: requirements, architecture, trade-off
  • Frame and solve optimization problems (LP, integer, nonlinear)
  • Run defensible trade studies and requirement allocation
  • Model system performance and identify integrating risk
  • Lead system-level architecture decisions with quantitative grounding

Consulting Sessions

Seminar attendees can sign up for individual consulting sessions with the instructor. Sessions are free for registered attendees, first-come first-served — sign up when registering by calling 248-539-0473 or during the seminar.

Seminar Outline

  • What systems engineering is and when it pays
  • Requirement types and flow-down
  • Architecture definition and interface control
  • The optimization modeling mindset
  • Decision variables, objectives, constraints
  • Linear programming and its tools
  • Integer and binary decisions
  • Scheduling, assignment, and allocation
  • When exact methods are feasible
  • Nonlinear problems and local optima
  • Pareto fronts and trade-off analysis
  • Choosing objectives honestly
  • Framing a trade study that survives review
  • Allocating budgets, weight, and performance
  • Connecting optimization to program decisions
  • Modeling system performance and interfaces
  • System-level failure and integration risk
  • Validating system models for decisions
  • Attendees frame and optimize a real system decision
  • Architect, trade, and allocate
  • Present the defensible system solution

More in Track I — Systems, Program & Product Engineering

Full Course Catalog