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 engineering;
• the overall process elements, and their relationships, which collectively constitute the building blocks of systems engineering;
• the role of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE);
• how to relate the roles of developer as supplier, developer as creator, and developer as acquirer, and to place their own roles, and those of their customers (internal and external) and suppliers (internal and external) within this framework;
• how to perform some of the basics of some of the more important techniques of system requirements analysis, development of physical solution, development of logical solution, evaluation of solution alternatives (trade-off studies) and design iteration; and
• some of the principles and major techniques of engineering management in a systems project context.

Training Methods and Materials

The course is delivered using a mixture of formal presentation, informal discussion, and workshops that exercise key aspects of systems engineering on a single system through a development life cycle. The Systems Engineering training makes use of workshops to put into practice the techniques covered in theory sessions.

You will be provided with:

• comprehensive Systems Engineering Overview course notes containing presentation material
• a Workbook containing workshop exercises, with worked examples also distributed in most cases
• numerous supplementary descriptions, checklists, forms and charts which you can put to use immediately
• complimentary access to PPI’s evolving Systems Engineering Goldmine.

Who Should Attend This Course?

This Systems Engineering Overview course is intended for people who interface with systems engineering activities, but do not need to perform these activities themselves in any substantial way. The course will be of particular value to people with job titles such as:

• Product Manager
• Project Director
• R and D Manager
• Engineering Manager
• Test and Evaluation Manager
• Test Engineer
• Specialty Engineer
• Project engineer
• Logistic Support Analysis (LSA) Specialist
• Industrial Engineer
• Production Manager
• Configuration Manager
• Human Resources Manager
• Marketing Manager
• Other project-related job titles
• and their staff.

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.

0. The Business Case for Systems Engineering (0.3 hours)

1. The System Life Cycle and Solution Development (3.7 hours)

• Defining the problem
  • Information, relationships, and artifacts of problem definition
• The solution domain: key concepts, relationships, and work products
  • Problem versus solution
  • Architectural/conceptual/preliminary versus detail
  • Scalability and recursion
  • Complexity
  • Top down, bottom up, “in-between”
• Life cycle processes and models
• Classes of stakeholders
• Configuration items and baselines
• Waterfall, incremental, evolutionary and spiral developments strategies
• Agile, concurrent (simultaneous) engineering, Product Line Engineering (PLE)
• Digital engineering, digital thread, digital twin
• Impact of AI
• Why a life cycle view – need to disposal?
• Summary of key points

2. Principles, Concepts and Elements (4.75 hours)

• Workshop – principles of the engineering of systems
• Some more systems concepts
• Foundation concepts of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) in the problem and solution domains
• The case for MBSE
• The engineering overhead complexity trade-off
• SE process model and elements
• Requirements analysis (capture and validation)
• Physical design (how to build)
• Logical design (how it is to work)
• Effective evaluation, decision and design optimization
• Specification of system elements
• System integration
• Specialty engineering
• Subjects, references and methods of verification and validation related via the “Vee” model, the “Wedge
  Model”
• Workshop – matching common activities to the SE process elements (shortened)
• Work product attributes
  • Requirements traceability
  • Design traceability
  • Verification traceability
• SE and SE-related standards
• Relationship of SE to other engineering disciplines
• Summary of key points

3. Requirements Analysis – Capture and Validation (7.7 hours)

• Types of requirements
• RA methodology
• Workshop – context analysis
• Exercise – design requirements analysis
• Exercise – states and modes
• Workshop – parsing analysis of example requirements
• Workshop – functional analysis in requirements analysis
• Software tools supporting requirements management and requirements analysis
• Common pitfalls in performing requirements analysis

4. Physical Solution Definition Part A (0.9 hours)

• Technology and innovation in solution development
• Generic influences in defining configuration items

5. Logical Solution Definition (3.0 hours)

• Types of logical representation
• Functional analysis in design – how to do it
• Functional design/architecture process
• Workshop – physical/functional design
• Performance threads
• Behavior modeling, UML, SysML, proprietary languages
• Software tools supporting logical and physical design

6. Physical Solution Definition Part B (1.0 hour)

• What next? – FMECA, FTA, ETA, …..
• Object-oriented design
• Interface engineering, common interfacing pitfalls
• Summary of key points

7. Effectiveness Evaluation, Decision & Solution Optimization (1.0 hour)

• Approaches: AHP, MAUT, QFD
• Workshop – engineering decision-making
• Multiple stakeholders, multiple uses, event-based uncertainty
• Solution optimization
• Software tools supporting effectiveness evaluation and decision

8. Requirements Specification Writing (0.2 hours)

• The ten requirement specification types and their uses
• Requirements specification structure principles

9. System Integration (0.2 hours)

• Integration planning
• Integration activities
• Integration strategies (nine)
• Integration testing
• Configuration audits related to system integration – RSA (FCA), BS/BS Correspondence (PCA)
• Qualification
• Summary of key points

10. Verification and Validation (0.2 hours – the subject is covered incrementally with the other modules)

• Technical reviews
  • Requirements reviews
  • Principles of design review
  • Architectural design review (ADR – PDR)
  • Detail design review (DDR – CDR)
  • Requirements satisfaction audits (FCAs)
  • Design description (BS-BS) audits (PCAs)
  • Technical reviews and incremental builds
  • Administration of technical reviews
• Technical performance measurement
• Test and evaluation
• Other verification and validation methods and tools
• Summary of key points

 11. Engineering Management (0.2 hours – the subject is covered incrementally within the other modules)

• Planning the engineering
• Integrating engineering specialties
• Engineering team structure
• Management frameworks – Specification Tree, Project Breakdown Structure (PBS – WBS)
• Managing configuration
• Managing interfaces
• Managing residual risk
• Summary of key points

 12. Summary (0.1 hours)

• Key points revisited
• Tailoring of SE methods to specific activities or projects
• Getting the most out of systems engineering methods
• SE implementation strategy