The FIRST SCOTTISH SYSTEMS ENGINEERING CONVENTION took place on 29th November 2001  in Glasgow, sponsored by THALES, BAE SYSTEMS and Nickleby. Speakers included Professor John Roulston OBE, FRSE,  technical director of BAE SYSTEMS in Edinburgh; CAB members Andy Low, the deputy Group Technical Director of Thales; James Kirby, head of the QinetiQ (formerly DERA) Systems and Software Engineering Centre; and two established experts of the UK Systems Engineering scene, Professors Derek Hitchins and Philip McPherson.

Though targeted at all Scottish industry and government, predictably 50% of the attendance was from the main defence and aerospace contractors, BAE SYSTEMS and Thales.  We had 68 attendees including speakers and organisers. 25 came from BAE systems, 13 from Thales, 6 from the Astronomical Technology Centre in Edinburgh, and 3 from Agilent. There were one or two each from about a dozen other organisations including Scottish Enterprise, Institute for System Level Integration and the Scottish Embedded Software Centre, manufacturing companies, and several self-employed consultants. 

When publicising the conference, we found an interesting and revealing lack of suitable briefing material to interest, as I put it, “CEOs, politicians and senior high school kids” in systems engineering. Can INCOSE prepare a set of briefing sheets, maximum of two sides, on the key issues and aspects of systems engineering? The style must lose no intellectual rigour yet get the message through to someone “with the attention span of a gnat – only interested in votes, jobs and economic growth”. 

In the opening session, Philip M’Pherson gave a rigorously argued justification for the value of 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.” Derek Hitchin then gave one of his usual, delightfully thought provoking, presentations showing how the system boundary should be extended to enclose all aspects of interest to the stakeholders before the architecting process carves it into manageable chunks. Then, as a warning against ill-considered partitioning, he showed how the catastrophic onset of chaos can destabilise even a deceptively simple system – the complexity arises from the interactions. Continuing this theme, John Williams related the entire management and physical architecture of the British railway system to the apparently trivial interface between track and wheel.

Scotland, with a population of 5 million, does 1% of the world’s science. Measured in publications per head of population, Scotland is the third most scientifically productive nation on earth. Scotland’s economic future is inextricably bound up with high technology, and that means risk. John Roulston, Technical Director of BAE SYSTEMS in Edinburgh, gave us the benefit of his many years’ experience developing state-of-the-art airborne radar systems – high risk systems developed under fixed price contracts. “Apply all your engineering knowledge to project problems you encounter. The systems engineering skill needed to accomplish design definition in the equipment sector is based on Mathematics and Physics aided by engineering knowledge in hardware and software. Successful projects spend more time and less (but higher quality) effort in the definition phase. Our people take on very hard tasks. They are due the respect of employer, purchaser and customer.” 

James Kirby presented a vision of embedded software in everything, and Steve Beaumont presented a vision of everything in one piece of silicon! They outlined the new capabilities being established in Scotland, to make embedded software and system level integration, respectively, available to local engineering businesses, and to aid transition from the science base to commercial success.

Effective use of the emerging hardware opportunities requires systematic large scale re-use. This in turn demands adherence to effective processes and interface standards. Andy Low gave an introduction to capability maturity models, described the considerable benefits Thales has already achieved from them, and outlined the reasons for selecting CMMI to underpin the company’s (literally) global improvement initiative and the experience to date of the transition. Stuart Arnold described progress on the now-imminent ISO/IEC 15288 lifecycle standard, and introduced the concept of the human in and affected by the system. Brian Sherwood Jones brought people into centre stage by explaining the emerging human factors standards and how they are designed to tie into 15288.

In the final session, Ron McLeod of Nickleby showed how improved HCI design needs to “put technology in its place” (i.e. inside robust and dependable systems, and behind clear and intuitive human interfaces!). Simon Harris, a business studies lecturer from Stirling University, pulled us back to the “big picture” with a fascinating, almost anthropological, study of the “systems engineering animal”. Simon’s study of the cultural imperatives driving the different management decision making styles in the major European nations gave many a lot to think about – not least those of us developing common processes for European multi-nationals!

The new President elect of the UK chapter, John Maclean, finished the formal proceedings by outlining INCOSE’s activities worldwide and in the UK, and the developing collaboration with the IEE.

Last Updated: 09 December, 2001