Boundary objects as a framework to understand the role of systems integrators

The US Department of Defense is facing challenges to develop the capabilities necessary to effectively operate in new operational environments. As a result, these services are seeking to partner with industry members and leverage both government and industry knowledge to develop System of Systems (SoS) that can provide the desired capabilities by integrating legacy systems with new technologies. These large-scale engineering projects require system integrators that can manage not only the technical interfaces but also the organizational ones. This paper proposes a boundary object framework that can assist in understanding the role of these systems integrators by observing changes in organizational interfaces. This framework does so by monitoring the objects and artifacts used at the interfaces.