 What is systems engineering?
Systems Engineering is “the
art and science of creating complex systems”. It covers the technical
and management disciplines for conceiving, developing, deploying, operating,
supporting and disposing of complex and novel systems and products. It is key to the effective integration of
disciplines during development, and to the safe and robust operation of
systems in real environments. It is becoming essential in an increasingly
wide range of economic activity, as complexity increases and consumers and
the public become less tolerant of risk (at least of risk imposed on them by
others).
Systems Engineers are also interested in the nature and consequences of interactions within and between complex systems. This takes
the discipline far beyond engineering, into management and government. Why
and how does a series of small and apparently unconnected changes and
decisions lead to sudden catastrophic results? Can systems engineering and
systems science help us to understand recent problems with the Scottish Exam board and the railways? Can they help
governments make better decisions, and communicate a better understanding of
risks and consequences of decisions to the public?
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Why does Systems Engineering matter to Scotland?
The Scottish economy needs the techniques of systems engineering to
increase its success ratio and added value when developing and
industrialising novel products and systems. Even superficially simple
product developments increasingly need a systems approach, as embedded
software becomes a critical factor in their success.
Systems Engineering is key to Scotland’s ability to grow indigenous
systems integrators and reduce its dependence on inward investment.
Benchmarking the Scottish economy against for example Finland, the latter
has a similar population, but higher GDP per capita, and more than
double the annual growth rate. This is thanks largely to the success of
several home-grown world class industrial companies. Finland’s telecoms
giant, Nokia, is a heavy user of systems engineering in both its consumer
product and its systems integration businesses.
INCOSE and SCOTLAND
There are over 300 members of INCOSE in the UK but only 8 in Scotland.
Although Systems Engineering is relevant to all industrial sectors and to
government, INCOSE membership is dominated by the traditional users of
heavyweight systems engineering methods in the defence and aerospace
sectors. INCOSE wants to increase its membership in Scotland, and its
member base outside the traditional defence and aerospace sectors. To this
end it is planning to hold a series of meetings in Scotland, to start a
2-way exchange:
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to show engineers, managers, and decision makers in Scottish
industry and government what INCOSE, and systems engineering in general,
can offer;
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and to show the rest of INCOSE the tremendous system-related
innovation developing in Scottish industry and academia.
Who should attend:
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Government decision makers who need a better understanding of
why small decisions can have big and unexpected consequences, and of
what has to be done to ensure that systems and organisations meet
stakeholder expectations and work robustly and safely
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Industry leaders and managers who want to increase their
organisation’s customer focus, improve their development process,
and satisfy legislative and competitive demands for robust, high
integrity, high added value systems and products
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Individual engineers who want to be able to “think systems”,
see the wider context of their work, and develop products and systems
which will be competitive in the global marketplace
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Academics with an interest in systems engineering,
systems science and product development.
What’s planned?
Past Events
- The FIRST SCOTTISH SYSTEMS ENGINEERING CONVENTION
took place in Glasgow on 29th November 2001. Speakers included
Professor John Roulston OBE, FRSE of BAE SYSTEMS, Andy Low, the deputy 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. The conference was timed to increase awareness of systems
engineering and capability maturity as the Scottish Centre for Embedded
Software is launched.
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