ISR Special Seminar: Nat Heiner, Northrup Grumman, "Engineering Large-Scale Complex Systems"

Monday, October 2, 2017
3:30 p.m.
1146 AV Williams Building
Jeff Coriale
301 405 6604
coriale@umd.edu

Engineering Large-Scale Complex Systems
A little history, and a conversation on hidden problems facing tomorrow’s systems engineers

Dr. Nat Heiner
Technical Fellow
Systems Engineering Center of Excellence
Mission Systems Sector
Northrop Grumman Corporation

Abstract
The software engineering field has experienced rapid change in engineering methodologies over the past 15 years. Although those changes have not yet stabilized, they are nonetheless well established. Viewed from a larger systems-engineering perspective, these software changes have created challenges for teams engaged in large-scale systems engineering programs. Some of the challenges involve conflict in differing management/oversight regimes. But other challenges involve first-order technical difficulties. For their solution, these hard problems will require the next generation of systems engineers to create techniques that do not exist today. This session is intended to draw students / faculty into discussion of those engineering challenges, and how easy it is to be distracted/confused/sidetracked by today’s dueling frameworks and engineering methodologies.

Biography
Nat Heiner returned to Northrop Grumman in 2007, after 6 years as senior executive at the US Coast Guard and DHS. In the CTO role, Nat often dual-hatted as the Coast Guard CIO and Chief Knowledge Officer. His first year back with Northrop Grumman, he was CTO in the Defense Group, later moving into the Advanced Technology CTO organization. Nat has been a technical lead or SME for a variety of mission areas — Naval base infrastructure, Coast Guard integrated mission logistics, mission systems engineering, mission-area engineering, Air Force’s Global Combat Support Systems,  Naval shipboard networks, Coast Guard shipboard Command & Control systems, satellite-based navigation and tracking systems, maritime domain awareness, network attack, advanced search technologies, and high-altitude communications platforms. He joined the Naval Studies Board group that published the CNO study Responding to Capability Surprise — A Strategy for US Naval Forces.

Nat was the Coast Guard’s senior civilian executive with organizational oversight of Coast Guard systems engineering, research and development, communications engineering, intelligence engineering, and enterprise architecture. During the creation of DHS he was detailed to act as the DHS Chief Knowledge Officer and deputy CIO.

Audience: Graduate  Undergraduate  Faculty  Post-Docs 

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