The Value of Systems Engineering  - Emeritus Prof. Philip M’Pherson,  Systems & Value Ltd, and City University.

The flier for INCOSE in Scotland states that “The Scottish economy needs the techniques of Systems Engineering to increase its success ratio and added value…”.  So what is the value realised by Systems Engineering? 

Taking all the definitions of SE produced over the last 50 years it seems that the practice of SE is intended to ensure that the right system is built and supported, and that the wrong system is not even started.   Then the value of SE may be considered under two headings:

1. The values delivered to the stakeholders by the right system during its life cycle, (with the avoided costs of building wrong systems)

2. The values delivered by SE itself as a process within the commercial and knowledge economies of the host business, consortium or nation.

[Note immediately that ‘value’ is a multidimensional quantifier that can be separated into financial, operational, beneficial, and ethical domains.]

Consider A:  Value of the Right System

 The outer boundary of a system is really defined by its stakeholders = owners, bill-payers, contractors, systems engineers and project managers, operators, users or customers, regulators, governments, and the social and natural environments impacted on by the system.  Clearly the list of stakeholders brings various arenas into play from which value is delivered: technological, operational, economic, environmental, and political.  Answering the value question requires that we really do draw an inclusive boundary for the whole-system, inside which the particular system of interest (SOI) proceeds through its life-cycle from acquisition through deployment to retirement.

What is a ‘right’ system?

A1  If a system is to be operationally right it must:

• satisfy stakeholder objectives throughout the life-cycle 

• be affordable and life-cycle cost-effective in the operational sense as agreed by the principal stakeholders,

• be life-cycle cost-beneficial as agreed by all stakeholders.

 A2  If a system is to be managerially right it must:

• be profitable to the associated business stakeholders, ie manufacturers and commercial operators of the system, or who use the system,

• enhance the strategic interests of at least the principal stakeholders,

• enhance the intellectual capital of the businesses conducting SE activities and of the associated professional systems engineers,

• be manageable, integratable, supportable

• be risk minimal,

• be politically desirable and feasible.

Consider B:  Value of the Practice of SE

B1  SE itself is an engineering and managerial process founded on scientific principles.  As such the practice and profession of SE should:

• be carried out within the best practice of engineering and management science,

• be a leading member in the knowledge community of practitioners, research, and educators,

• provide and maintain an accessible trail of development, practice and knowledge,

• provide rewarding career structures for professional systems engineers through to top management.

B2  SE is, or can become, a significant benefit to its host economies through:  

• the spread of its mindset into business and government, ie ensuring that all enterprises are created and managed with the same careful thought and standards that apply within SE (or ought to be)

• the returns to the economy from the enterprises constructing and operating systems

• the returns to the knowledge economy from the development and practice of SE.

These wish lists will be presented within a formal structure that tracks the cost-effectiveness of systems and the practice of systems engineering from the operational arena to the various value domains in a measurable form.  The presentation will account for the various contributions, using as illustration the problems raised by an inclusive cost-value analysis of a Europe-wide air traffic control system.

Remarks will be made that come from the experience of doing and watching SE over a long time. Mistakes and disasters are learning experiences and should not be forgotten.  

The values of SE contribute to business and national well-being in many ways.

Systems Thinking, Systems Engineering by Prof. Derek Hitchins , ASTEM

Products, processes, technology, organization – everything, it seems, is getting inexorably more complex. Complex systems exhibit behaviour – sometimes counter-intuitive behaviour – that can introduce risk. Systems Thinking is a straightforward way of representing / synthesizing complex systems to expose that counter-intuitive behaviour, hopefully before the putative system has been created.

While technology may not seem to be as malleable and deformable as the archetypal system, systems for conceiving, managing, assembling, operating and disposing of technology are. Such human-centred systems are replete with feedback, making them potentially non-linear, even at times chaotic. One of the systems we should be thinking about, then, is systems engineering itself.

There are many ways to create products and services. Some may be better for a particular purpose than others; they may be faster, cheaper, simpler, lower risk, more efficient or more effective. Systems thinking is essentially a simple form of dynamic modelling which includes the kinds of feedback we see in the real world: it enables us to synthesize many different ways of creating, looking not only at the effects within our companies, but accounting, too, for the behaviour of suppliers, markets and customers. The effects of Kaizen within a multistage automotive assembly process are exemplified.

The 5-layer model of systems engineering is presented. Exemplar models of Systems Thinking are presented for:

• Project systems engineering – the impact on cost and timescale of incipient requirement errors
• Business systems engineering – the various facets of systems engineering which come together in a lean volume supply chain
• Market systems engineering – the impact of innovation and quality on profit
• Flow Smoothing (Heijunka) in a lean volume supply system during product switchover
• Socio-economic systems engineering at national level, together with the basis for synthesizing a global model, linking the world’s major economies together
• Systems chaos, a salutary lesson that can generate within the simplest of systems from excessive coupling

Rails - The Complexity of Simple Guidance by John Williams, University of Birmingham

During the last year, some of the challenges of managing a railway that has multiple users and maintainers and a common infrastructure have started to emerge into the public domain.  This paper will examine the structure of the UK's main railway system and how it is maintained and operated.  It will review some of the major interfaces that are critical to the effective and safe operation of the railway system. It will then provide an illustrative example of the extensive relationships that these interfaces have with the railway and its environment by exploring the consequences of damage to the vehicle / track interface.  Finally, some of the recent approaches to address the challenges presented by this interface will be described.

Addressing the People Problem - ISO 15288 and the Human-System Lifecycle - Stuart Arnold, QinetiQ & Brian Sherwood-Jones, Process Contracting Limited

The system lifecycle process standard ISO 15288 is now stable and progressing towards publication.  Systems and software engineering have successfully collaborated on a process standard which describes the activities required to engineer a system.  This standard addresses the lifecycle of a system and its elements down to the level where individual implementation technologies can be specified.  Below this level of specification technology-specific lifecycle processes, such as ISO 12207 Software lifecycle processes are applied.  If particular specialist engineering skills are required, for example safety engineering, the relevant standards, such as IEC 61508 Functional Safety - Safety related systems are applied.  This approach works for most elements and specialisms and, to a large degree, can be applied to humans when considered as components of a system.  However, addressing the needs, wants and desires of humans as stakeholders and users, and designing systems for difference, interest and relationship require particular approaches and techniques.  These have been described by ISO TC159 Ergonomics in ISO 6385 Ergonomic principles in the design of work systems and 13407 Human-centred design processes for interactive systems.

 The Human-System (HS) model is currently an ISO CD with TC 159/SC4 as A specification (PAS) for the process assessment of human-system issues.  It is a development of ISO TR 18529 Human-centred lifecycle process descriptions for use in the assessment and improvement of the processes necessary for the specification and measurement of Quality In Use (ISO 9126:1999).  It details the particular implementation of system processes to take account of people and their interaction in the system lifecycle.  The model is presented as a process standard conforming to the requirements of JTC1/SC7 and ISO 15504 (i.e. it describes purposes, outcomes, practices and work products for each process).

 The paper will examine the way in which ISO 15288 takes account of humans in systems and will describe the four views of system and enterprise presented in the Human-system lifecycle model.  These address:

1. Human Factors Integration – issues related to people in the system of interest

2. Human-centred design – design for people using the system of interest in the context of use

3. Human Factors in the Lifecycle – issues related to people in enabling systems

4. Human Resources process – the provision of the correct number of competent staff.

The Human in the System - Robust Design for Real World Users -Dr Ron McLeod, Nickleby HFE Ltd

Many of the issues preventing technology-based systems delivering their full potential, whether in terms of delivered capability or return on investment, are to do with how people relate to, and use technology.   While (most of) today’s computer  systems are undoubtedly much easier to use than those of old, there remain significant barriers in terms of usability, accessibility and, perhaps most importantly, usefulness.  The limiting factor in many information-based systems is in turning the data which resides within the system, into information and knowledge in peoples heads.  Bridging this cognitive interface requires a unique engineering perspective grounded in a thorough understanding of the human cognitive system.  And it requires systems to be designed and engineered from their inception in ways which are effective in bridging the interface.

Society’s growing awareness of risk, and general concerns over health and safety and protecting the environment make it increasingly imperative to ensure that the role of the human in complex systems does not lead to loss of safety, lead to environmental damage, or put the health of those affected by complex systems at risk.  Tighter legislation, particularly at the corporate level, backed with increasingly powerful litigation act as affective catalysts to seek to design-out the possibility of human error in the search for inherently safe and environmentally friendly systems.

Last Updated: 04 November, 2001