The Systems Engineering program at UNC Charlotte looks for enthusiastic undergraduate students to study and learn in the new B.S. in Systems Engineering degree program. The program starts in fall 2008.

A changing global business environment is forcing U.S. engineering companies to move from self-sufficient engineering operations toward the integration of various engineering operations. These include design, production, manufacturing, logistics, sales and service at global locations and companies. The Systems Engineering (SE) degree fulfills this critical educational need.

SE is an engineering discipline whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process to ensure customers’ and stakeholders’ needs are satisfied in a high-quality, trustworthy, cost-efficient and schedule-compliant manner throughout a system’s entire life cycle.

SE integrates all the disciplines and specialty groups into a team effort, forming a structured development process that proceeds from concept to production to operation. SE considers both the business and the technical needs of customers, with the goal of providing a quality product that meets user needs.

The following areas capture the main Systems Engineering skills required in industry, both regionally and globally:

• Decision and risk analysis
• Systems modeling and optimization
• Systems design, planning and analysis
• Supply chain and logistics engineering
• Quality engineering
• Engineering management
• Effective communication and presentation
• Understanding of global business dynamics

The educational objectives of the B.S.S.E. program are:

• Provide students with knowledge and educational opportunities for dealing with systems issues in the competitive global engineering and business environment.
• Produce engineers who will lead in improving the understanding of global engineering issues and developing effective approaches for engineering operations.
• Train engineers who possess the critical thinking, methodological and communication skills required to advance and disseminate knowledge of systems engineering in supply chain operations.
• Provide educational opportunities to train the workforce needed to sustain the growth of global engineering operations/business in the state of North Carolina and in the U.S.
• Enhance the educational experience in systems, management and engineering for all undergraduate students at the institution.

We expect that the Systems Engineering graduates can:

• Handle operational issues from a systems perspective.
• Manage units with technical functions.
• Handle interdisciplinary issues and problems.
• Make decisions at all levels of an organization from top-management problems to strategic planning, product development and launching, production, marketing, sales, logistics support and field services.
• Understand future trends in global markets and economy.
• Manage multinational units, project and global supply chains.