Preparing for next generation systems

The paper presents outcomes from a top-down analysis of changes in the business environment and what needs to be done to extend and enhance competitiveness through professional workforce development. The work was done by an industry consortium with academic partners. The companies are system integrators at the top of the supply chain. However, their business structure has changed substantially in the past decade. A substantial amount of work that was once done in-house is now outsourced so they have to deal with a huge range of suppliers and commodity components to assemble 'systems of systems'. Training programs for technology executives have been used to elucidate the features of complex systems that would benefit from cooperative training and where no provision currently exists. The outcomes include improved characterization of requirements and identification of further educational development that can be undertaken both inside companies and in university graduate programs.