Using Systems Engineering to Design and Evaluate a Transparent and Accessible Vaccine Appointment and Delivery System

Due to the low number of registrations, we have had to cancel the in-person dinner. In-person lecture attendance is still welcome, as is virtual attendance.

Presentation: Media reports and our own experience showed that coronavirus pandemic vaccine delivery to people’s arms, at least in the US, did not meet expectations. While the rate of production and distribution continued to increase, those eligible to receive the vaccine remained confused or uninformed about how they obtain an appointment to ensure they can get vaccinated on a specific date at specific time. This presentation defines a system that permits any resident of a state (of the United States), no matter his/her place of residence or access to technology, to obtain a vaccine appointment for the initial vaccine dose, the second dose (if needed), and a booster dose and maintains the vaccine record for the resident. We present this definition in the form of operational needs, SysML artifacts (Use Cases with Use Case Narratives, Context Diagram, Requirements Diagram, and Activity Diagrams), Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs). Further, we present an initial simulation to evaluate how the system might perform under a given scenario and assumptions. The definition doesn’t include a specific implementation but provides a reference model for any government entity wanting to improve its current system for delivering any vaccine, not just the COVID-19 vaccine, into arms. The authors conduct this project under the auspices of the INCOSE Critical Infrastructure Protection and Recovery Working Group.

Speakers: Doug Bodner is a principal research engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he conducts research on systems engineering methods and analysis applied to supply chains, health delivery, infrastructure, and other systems.

Stephen J. Sutton retired in 2011, directed the systems engineering education programs at the University of Maryland until 2014, and now provides pro bono systems engineering services to non-engineering problems.

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The Registration Cost is for dinner only. The Lecture is open to all at no cost and begins at 7 pm.

Door Prize: TBD

Using Systems Engineering for a Vaccine Appointment and Delivery System