Chapter 1. Introduction

More now than ever, companies today want to deliver products better, faster, and cheaper. At the same time, in the high-technology environment of the twenty-first century, nearly all organizations have found themselves building more and more complex products. Today, a single company usually does not develop all the components that compose a product. More commonly, some components are built in-house and some are acquired; then all the components are integrated into the final product. Organizations must be able to manage and control this complex product development and maintenance.

Many organizations have also found themselves in the software business. Organizations that were not typically software companies—such as financial institutions, car manufacturers, airplane manufacturers, and insurance companies—find that much of their business relies on software. Software is often what differentiates them from their competitors. The problems these organizations address today involve both software and systems engineering. More and more, these disciplines are becoming a critical part of their business. In essence, these organizations are product developers that need a way to manage an integrated approach to their software and systems engineering as part of reaching their business objectives.