Determining critical success factors of systems engineering: A case study of a military aircraft development project

The Defense Industry is a sector that should be given importance for every country to protect its independence, and the most prominent studies in this sector are research and development projects. Thanks to the R&D projects, the defense systems of the countries are developed in a unique way, thus they are protected from the influence of other countries. Military aircraft projects are one of the most essential R&D projects in the defense sector. Systems engineering, on the other hand, has a different importance in military aircraft development projects compared to the classical project management approach because it enables progress in long and complex projects with more confident steps while reducing risk. To achieve this goal, 23 success factors were determined, and these factors were grouped under four main factors: project planning, technical processes, project participants and technical management. In order to determine the critical success factors of military aircraft development projects, 23 factors were evaluated by the decision makers who were experienced and experts in the field of systems engineering who work in aerospace industry by applying the Best-Worst method (BWM). As a result of the application, it has been determined that the most important factor group for decision makers is "project planning". It was observed that 10 factors came to the fore among 23 factors according to the general order of importance, and the most important one among them was the "clear determination of roles and responsibilities" factor. It has been observed that the BWM method is an efficient method in terms of data and time, making comparisons using less data than other methods and it produces reliable results.