MOA Signed Between Defense Acquisition University and the INCOSE Foundation

SAN DIEGO (20 December 2022) – International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Foundation and Defense Acquisition University (DAU) have signed a memorandum of agreement.

The project started as a result of the U.S. Congress wanting to ensure that faculty members at DAU go on a rotational assignment every five years for six months in order to be in tune with the current issues that our workforce is facing. DAU chose INCOSE as an extramural organization partner to support this congressional mandate.

The INCOSE Foundation and Defense Acquisition University share a similar goal:

 “Anticipating the future” is the goal of the INCOSE Foundation, with the focus on supporting new members from underserved countries.

 DAU’s mission is to “provide a global learning environment to develop qualified acquisition, requirements, and contingency professionals who deliver and sustain effective and affordable warfighting capabilities -- a workforce that procures and develops the next generation of equipment for the Department of Defense”

Tyrone Theriot, DAU Professor and Department Chair for Engineering and Technology said, “One of the things that interests me about the INCOSE Foundation is its global outreach. Working with the INCOSE Foundation, I hope to expand the number of INCOSE members from underrepresented countries so they can access and contribute to all the INCOSE resources such as working groups, technical materials and other available content, as well as increasing INCOSE Systems Engineering Professional certifications throughout these countries.

“Expanding INCOSE membership will ultimately benefit the global community of systems engineering professionals,” Theriot adds. “INCOSE is the conduit for individuals to be able to work together collaboratively regardless of where they are, or what organization they are with. The INCOSE Systems Engineering Professional certification provides worldwide recognition across academia and industry.”

John Snoderly, chair of the INCOSE Foundation, said, “INCOSE represents the cutting edge of systems engineering technological excellence and therefore [is] important not only to the Department of Defense, but to industries throughout the world in making the world a better place. The INCOSE Foundation has the same goal of improving our world through the global education of the work forces of the world.”

DAU and the INCOSE Foundation agreed that Tyrone Theriot will work with the INCOSE Foundation to benchmark systems engineering global knowledge and practices and define, develop, and experiment with techniques that connect practitioners with SE knowledge and the SE community

The agreement will be for a period of up to 12 months with the professor splitting his time equally between DAU and INCOSE Foundation duties, the project began earlier this year (2022).