Describe five basic characteristics of the systems engineering approach in its application
to an automotive product development program.

System engineering is a multidisciplinary engineering decision-making process involved in designing and using systems and products throughout their life cycle. The approach a system engineer takes is that as a car company does not build one component or system, they make an automobile. With that mentality several of the basic characteristics system engineering approach to automotive product development program are:

1. A vehicle is a machine containing various other systems
2. Designing a vehicle will require designing all the system within the vehicle so they work together to
   create a functional automobile which addresses the customer’s needs.
3. A diverse set of skills are required to design all the various systems of a vehicle.
4. An automobile has a wide range of attributes, individuals with proper background will be required to
   make decision about the attributes and trade-offs between conflicting attributes when designing all
   systems within a automobile.
5. A vehicle is subject to different environments and situational conditions, all these conditions should be
   taking into consideration during the design process.
6. All phase of the vehicle life cycle must be taken into consideration during the initial design.