UK Chapter

There is an emerging recognition within the project management and systems engineering communities that there is potential for putting the ideas of project management and system engineering to work better together. The Association for Project Management (APM) and the UK chapter of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE UK) intend to work together to help realise this potential.

So on Tuesday 15th January 2013, we are holding a joint workshop in London, places are limited

The workshop will be an early activity in an extended programme of co-operation between the two organisations; a programme which the workshop will help to shape.

The workshop is intended to help projects deliver better systems, more reliably, more quickly and at lower cost. The primary objective of the workshop will be to identify specific areas which the systems engineering and project management communities can profitably explore and to start to identify what needs to be done in these areas. The workshop will also promote communications and the sharing of ideas between the project management and systems engineering communities.

For more information and to register please visit the Association for Project Management (APM) website.

This event will feature Rick Adcock from Cranfield providing an in-depth overview of the BKCASE project.

The BKCASE project produced its final version of a guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) in September 2012. This will become an INCOSE-hosted product. This presentation will consider what is covered in the SEBoK and will focus in particular on areas of contention or challenge. These cover knowledge areas in which a better shared understanding is needed and those where we need to improve current practice and opportunities for Systems Engineering to expand into new areas. This will help us understand where Systems Engineering needs to go to develop further its knowledge and relationships in the future.

A useful side benefit of regular attendance at RIG events is building up a picture of what is going on in UK rail systems engineering but it does take a little while for the picture to emerge. This session is focussed on building that picture in one hour. We invite you to come along and talk for no more than 3 minutes about what your organisation is doing in rail SE. You are encouraged to send me one slide in advance which we will have ready for you to speak to but you can talk without a slide if you want to. (And you can just listen as well.)

If the RIG membership doesn’t let us down (and it never has in the past), participants will leave the session with a more comprehensive overview of who is doing what in UK rail systems engineering than anyone else on the planet.

About the seminar:

Increasingly, human factors issues are being considered fundamental to ensuring the integrity of safe systems. This seminar will bring human factors centre-stage from the periphery of engineering safety-critical systems by illustrating how they should be included within a good safety management system, examined in a similar way to any other risk control system. Seminar presentations from human factors experts working in a selection of industries will demonstrate how human factors issues can be mitigated to ensure safe systems.

This is the regular meeting of the MBSE working group.

Its purpose is to review and progress all outstanding actions and provide a forum for the members to pursue the objectives of the WG.

Joining Instructions:

Host: Christopher Bouch c.bouch@bham.ac.uk

Location: Room N123, Gisbert Kapp Building (G8 on the plan)

On arrival visitors should report to reception and where Chris will come to meet you.

Transport:

Parking is just across the road in the North Car Park; drivers have to stop at the barrier and contact security to gain access.  

Anyone attening by car should contact Chris with their  postal addresses so he can send you a parking permit.

If traveling by train, the venue is only a pleasant 10 minute walk away from University station (service every 10 minutes to Birmingham New Street).

Contacts:

If you are planning on attedning please contact either

c.bouch@bham.ac.uk or james.towers@object-flow.com no later than the 9th of April so we can finalise numbers.

Any member unable to attend, but still wishing to contribute to this meeting, can make a submission to the committee who will ensure their viewpoint is represented.

We look forward to seeing you on the 11th.

Dr Robert Davis and Paul Cheeseman, TPD, 1730H, Wednesday, 1st May 2013, LU's offices in Holborn, London. A review of experience in preparing systems safety handbooks for the rail industry and a look at the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating good practice in Systems Safety Engineering with good practice in Systems Engineering.

In this era of economic constraints there’s an ever increasing need for operating assets to function to their maximum potential – and that’s true across any sector – but just as important is the need for these assets to continue to perform safely.

The invited speaker seminar day on 12 December is preceded on 11 December by a selection of pre-bookable workshops.

Visit the IETs about page to see this year's programme and speaker line-up.

Information about registering can be found at http://conferences.theiet.org/sil/register/index.cfm.

London Underground has already engaged in significant upgrades to the Victoria Line, Jubilee Line and the Sub-surface Lines, which commenced under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreements. Work does not stop there however and LU is now exploring programmes for possible upgrades of other deep tube lines; an opportunity for ‘left shifting’ and engaging system engineering right at the front of the lifecycle according to all the text books and SE protagonists.

Those deep tube lines yet to undergo a major upgrade (the Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Northern Lines, and, later, the Central Line) offer a variety of unique challenges. The desire for ever increasing levels of capacity, reliability and automation beyond anything ever undertaken on any previous line upgrade, within the constraints of topography, heat and the need for continuous service operation, makes it paramount to get the system design (assets, processes and people) right.......