Reviews of Recent Events
12 Sep 2006 - Railway Systems Engineering in Action:
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Slides
Jon Elphick and Mark Irving, both from WS Atkins,
delivered their presentation entitled "Railway Systems Engineering in
Action" to the INCOSE Railway Interest Group on Tuesday 12th September
2006, at London Underground's 55 Broadway head quarters. The
presentation covered the topics discussed in a paper they had previously
submitted (and was subsequently selected as a Key Reserve Paper) to the
EuSEC 2006 conference in Edinburgh.
The presentation used three recent case studies to
described a practical approach to the use of Systems Engineering,
employed successfully by Atkins. Jon described how he and Mark came
together to develop the Concept Design of Telecommunication Systems for
the new Jubilee and Northern Line Service Control Centres (SCCs).
Initially a clear project plan was documented and an information model
was prepared to describe how source documentation would be related to
the plethora of project documentation. Jon then spent some time
explaining the concepts of source documentation 'Triage' and the
'Tagging' of identified requirements. The Triage and Tag information
generated by the project team was initially collected using Excel
templates, then imported into a DOORS database. The database was then
used as the basis of the Assurance Case to the client, demonstrating
requirement traceability.
Mark then reviewed the second project, where the
client brief was to develop a Concept Design for the new Victoria Line
SCC. The same basic approach was adopted, with improvements based on
the lessons learned. Mark presented an example of how an argument is
used to provide rich traceability between requirements tags and design
clauses. A comprehensive DOORS database was generated to host the
collated data; this included the Triage of over 1300 documents and the
generation of almost 3000 SCC system requirements.
Jon then presented the final case study - a non-rail
industry project! The message here was that the approach was
successfully implemented in the detailed design lifecycle stage of a
computer control system – an airport baggage handling SCADA system. The
approach has proven successful, with all three projects meeting client
expectations. The approach did not add significantly to the cost, while
it was believed to have contributed to an improvement in the quality of
the designs in each case.
Thirty minutes of excellent questions followed the
presentation, coming from several members of the 30-strong audience.
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