Systems Engineering Overview
Systems Engineering provides a methodology, skill-set and tool-set to cope with complexity and risk. Project costs and timescales are managed and controlled more effectively by having greater control and awareness of the project requirements, interfaces and issues and the consequences of any changes.
The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) defines Systems Engineering as:
An interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realisation of successful systems. It focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, and then proceeding with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem. Systems Engineering considers both the business and technical needs of all customers with the goal of providing quality products that meet the user needs”
- (INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, Version 3, June 2006).
There are four key business benefits of Systems Engineering . These are:
- Building the right system (and avoid the costs associated with investing in the wrong one)
- Ensuring stakeholder satisfaction on delivery
- “Integration by design”: avoiding overspend and over-runs in the expensive phase of the lifecycle (generally integration, test and setting to work)
- Achievement of value for money
If Systems Engineering does not deliver these benefits it is not being used properly. Poor quality or irrelevant systems engineering adds cost not value.
Systems Engineering covers a range of sub processes including
- Requirements Management
- Verification and Validation
- Architecture
- Interface Management
- Configuration and Change Control