Upcoming Courses

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Key Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this course, participants are expected to have learned:

• the overall concepts which are characteristic of a systems approach to design;
• the overall process elements, and their relationships, that collectively constitute the process building blocks of design (verb);
• learn a structured approach to physical design, use logical solution to help get physical design right, evaluate solution alternatives (conduct trade-off studies) and optimize design in a structured way;
• learn in overview about the disciplines of reliability engineering, safety engineering, maintainability engineering and producibility (manufacturability) engineering;
• how to tailor the application of design principles and methods to different application scenarios; and
• how to design for reliability, safety, maintainability and producibility.

Training Method and Materials

The course makes extensive use of course workshops to put into practice the techniques covered in theory sessions.

The course is delivered using a mixture of formal presentation, informal discussion, and extensive workshops that exercise key aspects of a systems approach to design, using a single system throughout. The result is a high degree of learning, as evidenced by workshop work products, and the extensive commendations received from past participants.

Participants will be provided with:

• comprehensive course materials containing presentation material and supporting reading material;
• numerous supplementary descriptions, checklists, forms and charts which you can put to use immediately; and
• complimentary access to PPI’s evolving Systems Engineering Goldmine.

Some Key Questions

• What is architecture?
• Is architecture different to design?
• What is a systems approach to design and how is it relevant?
• What is the relevance of waterfall development, incremental development, evolutionary development, agile, spiral development, simultaneous/concurrent engineering?
• What is the timing relationship between logical and physical design?
• What is logical design, and what forms can it take?
• Why do we care about logical design?
• What is model-based architecting? Model-based design? Are model-based and model-driven different?
• What is object-oriented design and how does it relate?
• What languages and tools are applicable for model-based work?
• Where does FMEA figure?
• Is FMECA different to FMEA?
• What about FTA and ETA, where do they figure?
• Are model-based techniques limited to certain technologies?
• How can we be sure we have come up with the best design?
• Everywhere I turn there seems to be uncertainty. How can I make design decisions in the presence of such uncertainty?
• Is there a reliable and efficient way to optimize design?
• How do I design for reliability?
• How do I design for safety?
• How do I design for maintainability?
• How do I design for producibility?
• What are the Skills, Knowledge and Attitudes (SKAs) conducive to success in being a designer?

Who Should Attend This Course?

This design course is designed for personnel who perform or manage the development of small to large technology-based systems, products, capabilities, etc. The course will be of particular value to people with job titles such as:

• System Architect
• Enterprise Architect
• Design Engineer
• Systems Engineer
• Business Analyst
• Systems Analyst
• Software Systems Engineer
• Software Engineer
• Specialty Engineer – reliability, safety, maintainability, producibility
• Hardware Engineer
• Research Engineer
• Project Engineer
• Logistics Support Analysis Specialist
• Industrial Engineer
• Other engineering job titles
• R and D manager
• Engineering Manager.

0. Introduction

• The business case for a systems approach to design

1. Design-Related Principles of Engineering

• Definition of terms
• Design interactive exercise – basic
• Design interactive exercise – capability system
• Systems engineering process overview – the football diagram
• Design within a systems engineering process model
• System views
• Workshop 1 – design-related principles

2. System Development Strategies

• The solution domain: key concepts, relationships, and work products
• Waterfall, incremental, evolutionary and spiral development approaches
• Workshop 2 – solution development strategies for a product

3. Concepts of Architecture and Detailed Design – Physical and Logical

• Physical architecture (structural view) – basic concepts
• Logical architecture – basic concepts
• Logical architecture related to physical architecture
• Reference architectures
• Architecture patterns
• Architecture models
• Architecture frameworks
• Useful forms of logical representation – functional, state-based,
• mathematical, hybrid, with examples
• Model-based design in practice – Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)/Model-Based Architecting (MBA)/Model-Based Design (MBD)/Model-Driven Analysis (MDA)/Model-Driven Design (MDD)
• Knowledge, skills and attitudes for architecting

4. Initial Physical Conceptualization

• The role of technology and innovation
• Architectural design driver requirements
• Workshop 3 – identification of architectural design driver requirements
• Techniques for stimulating innovation: brainstorming, TRIZ
• Perspiration engineering: configuration items
• Criteria for selecting configuration items
• Design complexity trade-off
• Relationship of configuration item definition to system integration
• Interactive exercise – a simple physical design
• Workshop 4 – physical conceptualization of solution
• Exercise – architectural design heuristics

5. Functional Design

• Functional analysis in design – how to do it
  
  • Functional analysis/architecture process
  • Item flow and control flow
  • Un-allocatable and allocatable functions
  • Pitfalls in defining functions
  • Common pitfalls in functional design
  • Interactive exercise – a simple functional design
  • Workshop 5 – physical and functional design, part A
  • Workshop 5 – physical and functional design, part B (optional)
  • Coupling, cohesion, connectivity
  • Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)/Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) in
    design
  • Performance thread analysis
  • Allocation of functionality between hardware and software
• Fault Tree Analysis
• Event Tree Analysis
• Behaviour modeling languages
• Other languages incorporating functional modeling: Systems Modeling Language (SysML 1.x), …
• MBSE language comparison
• SysML2
• Software tools supporting functional and physical design
• Pitfalls in functional design

6. State-Based Design

• State-based design – how to do it
  • Workshop 6 – a simple state-based design
• Relationship to object orientation
• SysML and alternative languages incorporating state-based modeling
• Software tools supporting state-based design
• Pitfalls in state-based design

7. Object Process Methodology (OPM)

• Background to OPM
• OPM description
• Relationship to object orientation
• Software tools supporting OPM

8. Design Decision-Making and Optimization – Trade-Off Studies

• Designing for feasibility
• Designing for effectiveness: approach to design optimization
  
  • The role of Measure of Effectiveness (MOE) and goals
  • The origin of a system effectiveness model
  • Designing for the company versus designing for the customer – handling conflict of interest
• Using a system effectiveness model
  
  • Taking account of risk relating to goals
  • Taking account of risk relating to satisfaction of requirements
  • Event-based uncertainty
  • Risk aversion
  • Workshop 7 – using a system effectiveness model
  • Cost/capability, return on investment and like concepts
  • Iterative optimization of design – an effective methodology
• Other techniques – Quality Function Deployment
• Software tools supporting design decision-making
• Some common pitfalls in design decision-making

9. Design For Six-Sigma (DFSS)

• What is Six-Sigma?
• Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC)
• Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify (DMADV)
• The DFSS toolset

10. Return to Physical Design

• Functional to physical allocation
• Facilities, procedures, people, and other types of system element
• Use of a specification tree
• System elements not designated as configuration items
• Some common pitfalls in developing system physical architecture
• Use of architectural design driver requirements
• Adding the detail to the design
• Design creates requirements – the duality of requirements and design
• Interface engineering
• Interface requirements specifications versus interface design descriptions/interface design drawings (ICDs)
• The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) 7-Layer Model and similar in interface engineering
• Relationship to system integration
• Evolution of interfaces in systems having levels of structure
• Some common pitfalls in interface engineering
• Major artifacts created in design

11. Engineering Specialty Integration (ESI)

• What makes an engineering specialty special?
• Common engineering specialties
• A generic approach to ESI
• Organizational issues of ESI
• Pitfalls, and specialty engineering examples

12. Concurrent (Simultaneous) Engineering

• System of interest – enabling system relationships
• Why concurrent (simultaneous) engineering
• Organizational aspects of implementation
• Process aspects of implementation
• Pitfalls in implementation

13. Reliability and Safety Engineering

• Introduction to terminology
• Measures of reliability
• Probability theory related to reliability and safety
• Reliability Block Diagrams
• FMEA and FMECA
• Workshop 8 – performing a basic define failure modes and effects analysis (DFMEA)
• Fault Tree and Event Tree Analysis
• Common cause/common mode failures
• Root cause analysis
• Markov analysis
• Component failure and repair distributions
• Monte Carlo simulation and Latin Hypercube sampling
• Reliability data and analysis
• Verification of reliability
• Measures of safety
• Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) studies
• Safety assurance
• Workshop 9 – performing a basic HAZOP Study

14. Maintainability Engineering

• Measures of maintainability
• Principles of designing for maintainability
• General techniques of designing for maintainability
• Modules
• Access and handling
• Part selection
• Verification of maintainability

15. Producibility (Manufacturability) Engineering

• Measures of producibility
• Design For Manufacture (DFM) vs. Design For Assembly (DFA)
• Techniques of designing for manufacture
• Design for three dimensional (3D) printing
• Techniques of designing for assembly
• Verification of producibility
• Producibility risk analysis

16. Summary and Key Points

• Action plan

 

Q. Does the Architectural Design (AD5D) course cover concepts and methodology of TOGAF, DoDAF and related topics?

Yes, Architectural Frameworks are overviewed in PPI’s 5-day Architectural Design course (AD5D), but only briefly. The focus of the course is on efficient and successful architecting, not on organizing the information that is the product of the architecting.

TOGAF is actually a framework for organizing architecture and other information that is specific to IT systems. DODAF 2 is called an architectural framework, but it is really a structure for organizing project-related data, including some aspects of system architecture. In the view of PPI, the cost-effectiveness of DODAF 2 is yet to be demonstrated. PPI’s Architectural Design course focuses on the principles and methods of performing architectural (conceptual design) that generate architectures (conceptual designs). All of the information created in performing architectural design has a place in populating viewpoints defined within the various Architectural Frameworks, of which 55 are known to PPI. But duplication, ambiguity and illogicality are rife in the architectural frameworks, and typically, a large proportion of the content is not architecture. Expect at least 3 days of training to be needed to try to explain and defend any of the major architectural frameworks.

Q. Do you offer tailoring of this course?

Yes. All courses are tailored informally verbally in delivery by selecting, where possible, examples matched to the domains of interest to the class. We can also work with you to design a formally customized curriculum for the development of your people. We have done so for many client companies, and we would love to work with you to this end. We always suggest that a client takes the corresponding standard course prior to any customization. For systems engineering, this is because systems engineering is the problem-independent and solution technology-independent principles and supporting methods for the engineering of systems, based on systems thinking. So the objectives of customization need to be very clear and focused on adding further value. In practice, customization, if performed, usually becomes the replacement of examples and possibly the main workshop system with domain-specific equivalents. Substitution of the workshop system usually involves substantial redevelopment of courseware. Out of necessity, formal tailoring of courseware is performed on a fee basis.