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Systems Engineering Overview

A course presented over 3 days by Robert Halligan.

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Summary
Course Overview
Course Outline

This overview course is intended for participants and other stakeholders in technical projects who seek familiarity with systems engineering without themselves applying the principles and tools to engineering activities. Those in roles that interface with systems engineering activities will find the course especially relevant. We have found that is not possible to teach systems engineering in a three-day course to those who have to practice it to any substantial degree. Decades of experience in delivering systems engineering training support this view. However, an objective of achieving a common understanding of the nature and principles of systems engineering, viz. the systems approach to the engineering of systems, is certainly achievable.

Systems engineering can be thought of as the problem-independent and technology-independent principles of, and methods for, the engineering of systems, based on systems thinking. This 3-day Systems Engineering short course provides an overview of the principles and methods of systems engineering: an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to the engineering of system solutions, adopted by leading enterprises worldwide, that aims to capture stakeholder needs, objectives and values, and to transform this problem definition into a holistic, life-cycle balanced system solution. This solution must satisfy the imperatives, and should optimize overall project and solution effectiveness according to the values of the stakeholders who are being served.

In course design and delivery, as you would expect, examples are used verbally in delivery, formally in courseware, and in the workshops. Verbal examples are always chosen to match the application domain(s) of the participants, to the maximum extent possible. Examples in courseware are diverse. The workshops, which play the major role in learning, relate to a single workshop system, the application of which anyone can understand. The design workshops for the same system are selected to match a diverse range of technology backgrounds.

At the conclusion of the course, participants are expected to have a common understanding of SE principles, process elements with which to implement those principles, and their relationships. The process elements are requirements capture and validation (requirements analysis), physical and logical design, effectiveness evaluation and decision (the conduct of trade-off analysis), requirements specification, system integration, verification, validation, and systems engineering management. All of the above is within the context of typical life-cycle phases, such as problem definition, solution development, production, utilization, support and disposal. The different development styles of waterfall, incremental, evolutionary and spiral are emphasized, as is the practice of concurrent (simultaneous) engineering.

This introductory course does not require an engineering background. Systems engineering is primarily concerned with:

problem definition on a life cycle basis;
problem-solving;
verification that requirements have been satisfied;
validation that work products satisfy needs; and
management of the above.

Systems engineering does necessitate or develop an ability to think in abstract terms, as a means to the end of developing the right thing correctly, and showing that we have done so.

This course may be credited toward the maintenance of the INCOSE Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) certification for 24 Professional Development Units and PDUs may be claimed for PMI’s family of certifications, including PMP
This course qualifies for Engineers Australia and Engineering New Zealand (IPENZ) CPD purposes (24 hours)
This course may qualify for CPD, CLP and similar purposes with other organizations (24 instructor hours)
This course may be credited toward the maintenance of the Project Management Institute (PMI) certifications. Suggested PMI Talent Triangle® PDU allocation:
- Ways of Working – 22
- Power Skills – 1
- Business Acumen – 1

Key Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this course, participants are expected to have learned:

the overall concepts which are characteristic of a systems approach to engineering;
the overall process elements, and their relationships, which collectively constitute the building blocks of systems engineering;
the role of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE);
how to relate the roles of developer as supplier, developer as creator, and developer as acquirer, and to place their own roles, and those of their customers (internal and external) and suppliers (internal and external) within this framework;
how to perform some of the basics of some of the more important techniques of system requirements analysis, development of physical solution, development of logical solution, evaluation of solution alternatives (trade-off studies) and design iteration; and
some of the principles and major techniques of engineering management in a systems project context.

Training Methods and Materials

The course is delivered using a mixture of formal presentation, informal discussion, and workshops that exercise key aspects of systems engineering on a single system through a development life cycle. The Systems Engineering training makes use of workshops to put into practice the techniques covered in theory sessions.

You will be provided with:

comprehensive Systems Engineering Overview course notes containing presentation material
a Workbook containing workshop exercises, with worked examples also distributed in most cases
numerous supplementary descriptions, checklists, forms and charts which you can put to use immediately
complimentary access to PPI’s evolving Systems Engineering Goldmine.

Who Should Attend This Course?

This Systems Engineering Overview course is intended for people who interface with systems engineering activities, but do not need to perform these activities themselves in any substantial way. The course will be of particular value to people with job titles such as:

Product Manager
Project Director
R and D Manager
Engineering Manager
Test and Evaluation Manager
Test Engineer
Specialty Engineer
Project engineer
Logistic Support Analysis (LSA) Specialist
Industrial Engineer
Production Manager
Configuration Manager
Human Resources Manager
Marketing Manager
Other project-related job titles
and their staff.

Do you Offer Tailoring of this Course?

Yes. All courses are tailored informally verbally in delivery by selecting, where possible, examples matched to the domains of interest to the class. We can also work with you to design a formally customized curriculum for the development of your people. We have done so for many client companies, and we would love to work with you to this end. We always suggest that a client takes the corresponding standard course prior to any customization. For systems engineering, this is because systems engineering is the problem-independent and solution technology-independent principles and supporting methods for the engineering of systems, based on systems thinking. So the objectives of customization need to be very clear and focused on adding further value. In practice, customization, if performed, usually becomes the replacement of examples and possibly the main workshop system with domain-specific equivalents. Substitution of the workshop system usually involves substantial redevelopment of courseware. Out of necessity, formal tailoring of courseware is performed on a fee basis.

0. The Business Case for Systems Engineering

1. The System Life Cycle and Solution Development

defining the problem domain
- information, relationships, and artifacts of problem definition
the solution domain: key concepts, relationships, and work products
- problem versus solution
- architectural/conceptual/preliminary versus detail
- “our” problem versus “their” problem
- architectural/conceptual/preliminary versus detail
- scalability and recursion
- complexity
- top down, bottom up, “in-between”
life cycle processes and models
classes of stakeholders
configuration items and baselines
why a life cycle view – need to disposal?
waterfall, incremental, evolutionary and spiral developments
Product Line Engineering (PLE)
Digital engineering, digital thread, digital twin
summary of key points

2. Principles, Concepts and Elements

workshop – principles of the engineering of systems
some more systems concepts
why MBSE and digital engineering
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) in the problem & solution domains
SE process model and elements
workshop – matching common activities to the SE process elements (shortened)
verification and validation related to the “V” model, the “Wedge Model”
work product attributes
- requirements traceability
- design traceability
- verification traceability
SE and SE-related standards
relationship of SE to other engineering disciplines
summary of key points

3. Requirements Analysis – Capture and Validation

types of requirements
RA methodology
workshop – context analysis
workshop – design requirements analysis
workshop – parsing analysis of example requirements
software tools supporting requirements management and requirements analysis
workshop – functional analysis in requirements analysis
common pitfalls in performing requirements analysis

4. Physical Solution Definition Part A

technology and innovation in solution development
generic influences in defining configuration items
exercise – physical & functional design

5. Logical Solution Definition

types of logical representation
functional analysis in design – how to do it
functional design/architecture process
workshop – a simple physical/functional design
performance threads
behavior modeling, UML, SysML, DODAF
software tools supporting logical and physical design

6. Physical Solution Definition Part B

what next? – FMECA, FTA, ETA, ORA, …..
object-oriented design
interface engineering, common interfacing pitfalls
summary of key points

7. Effectiveness Evaluation, Decision & Solution Optimization

approaches: AHP, MAUT, QFD
workshop – engineering decision-making
multiple stakeholders, multiple uses, event-based uncertainty
solution optimization
handling conflict of interest between acquirer and supplier
software tools supporting effectiveness evaluation and decision

8. Requirements Specification Writing

the ten requirement specification types and their uses
public domain specification standards – the good, the bad, and the ugly
specification structure principles

9. System Integration

integration planning
integration
integration testing
design interaction with hardware and software production
configuration audits related to system integration – RSA (FCA), BS/BS Correspondence (PCA)
qualification
summary of key points

10. Verification and Validation

technical reviews
- requirements reviews
- principles of design review
- architectural design review (ADR – PDR)
- detail design review (DDR – CDR)
- requirements satisfaction audits (FCAs)
- design description (BS-BS) audits (PCAs)
- technical reviews and incremental builds
- administration of technical reviews
technical performance measurement
test and evaluation
other verification and validation methods and tools
summary of key points

11. Engineering Management

planning the engineering
integrating engineering specialties
engineering team structure
management frameworks – Specification Tree, Project Breakdown Structure (PBS – WBS)
managing configuration
managing interfaces
managing residual risk
summary of key points