To review work on Service Definition for Military Vehicles and comparison with other work of the group.

Running in conjunction with our Training Day this year will offer the opportunity for any current or potential SEP programme candidates to sit their examination on-site at Engineers' House. The exam will run from 10:00 - 13:00. For more information click here

'Unlocking Innovation through Systems Engineering' INCOSE’s Annual International Symposium is the largest worldwide annual gathering of people who do systems engineering for six days of presentations, case studies, workshops, tutorials and panel discussions. The program attracts an international mix of professionals at all levels, and includes practitioners in government and industry, as well as educators and researchers. The benefits of attending the Symposium include: the opportunity to share ideas; network; build competency; pursue certification; contribute to the advancement of the profession through collaboration on tools, processes and methodologies; learn about new offerings in training and education; and forge new partnerships. For more information click here

Reports on: - SeBOK and Systems Engineering Handbook relatig to Services - Proposed skeleton for service engineering handbook - Review of standard stakeholders for Systems - do they apply for Services Way forward to issuing guidance

Dr. Steve Wright is a senior lecturer in Avionics, Systems, and Electronics in the Engineering Design and Mathematics Department at the University of the West of England, with special interest in drone technologies. Steve will explain how the evolution and convergence of a number of separate technologies allowed for a revolutionary step change in consumer/prosumer drone capability and affordability. Each of these technologies and how they are integrated will be described, as will the emergent challenges for system reliability. In particular, the difficulties posed by the different technical heritage these drones have compared to conventional aerospace. We hope to provide both a static and flying display of a selection of drones. Please note this event will be held at BAWA, and not our regular venue.

This event is in partnership with the IET About this event Discuss the challenges associated with developing architectures for complex multidisciplinary systems that are diverse and heterogeneous in nature. In particularly the design approaches that consider emergent behaviours and aim to achieve particular system level attributes. I’m especially interested in scenarios where architectures are typically developed independently by discipline but there is a functional relationship apparent at the system level e.g. the performance of a modern F1 race car may be dependent on the interactions of aerodynamics, handling, power and the control philosophies. How can these diverse and complex disciplines be managed to achieve the optimum integrated system level performance? Speakers Our speakers for the event include: Mike Wilkinson - Niteworks Stuart Mitchell - Yorkshire Water Jonathon Holt - Rolls Royce Professor Visakan Kadirkamanathan - Sheffield University Tim Rabbets - QinetiQ To registration for this event please go to the IET website site

Register via Eventbrite Kindly hosted by Systems and Control Research Centre School of Mathematics Computer Science and Engineering City, University of London Bio After starting his career as a train driver, Scott Meadows moved into operations and performance at Network Rail where he worked with cross-industry groups to improve the industry’s safety and reliability performance. He is currently a principal consultant at Altran, working on the Programme and Systems Integration team for the Thameslink programme. Drawing on the doctoral research he started at Leeds University at the Institute of Transport Studies, he has written a systems model of power based on his experiences in the UK Railway Industry. Synopsis Power is like gravity and electricity. We know it exists through its effects; we often however, explore its consequences rather than the medium itself. We all work in or for organisations where the perception of power is distributed among many actors and, when we get that distribution wrong, the effects are adverse. How do we explore power, its nature and basis, then? Can we use systems thinking to understand the power environment and to predict and prevent problems that may arise from the perception of power distributions? The answer is yes: through system dynamic modelling. Here we can start to model our power environment, explored through three recognised faces of power, how power is developed and exercised. But we can also add a fourth face of power, in terms of system feedback, an element that is often overlooked. This is the Special Theory of Holes. It is a systems dynamic model of the exercise of power, taking the inputs to ‘A’ who exercises (Overt, Covert and Latent power), over ‘B’, who has power exercised over them, to achieve something, classed as an output. However nothing exists in isolation. ‘B’ sometimes responds in ways we don’t account for or fully understand: this is their feedback to the system of power exercised by A. If we want to improve working conditions and the efficiency and efficacy of our organisations, dismissing system feedback can be costly. It is here where modelling the power environment can help us understand the exercise of power in play, and identify if it is reducing our overall capability. Scott hopes that the presentation will offer systems thinkers a vision of how they may be able to use their skills to deal with problems at work that they previously thought that systems thinking could not reach. Register via Eventbrite

The need for the MOD to set out the future strategic context was articulated in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. To meet that requirement, the Strategic Trends Programme was started in 2001 and the first edition of Global Strategic Trends (GST) was published in 2003. Subsequently, GST, along with the Future Operating Environment have been key elements of the MOD’s contribution to both the National Security Strategy and the Strategic Defence and Security Review – and we expect them to play similar roles in the future. GST is the first step in a series of MOD long-term planning activities. By providing a global context, further work will then be able to examine its implications and develop policy and capability options to meet the resulting challenges. While GST is produced principally for MOD it has utility for others involved in long-term planning. The program has benefited from considerable engagement with those outside MOD – from academia, business and government both domestically and internationally. In so doing, we have deliberately attempted to avoid a single, subjective perspective. The presentation will discuss the starting point for the next version of GST and the way trends are being identified. It will discuss some of the analysing techniques used and the process upon which the next version of GST is being produced. Paul Norman Paul currently works for the Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre as the Technology lead for the strategic trends program. He received aMaster of Physics degree from the University of Manchester in 2000. After graduating he worked in the finance industry where he was promoted to the head of the offer and completions department within Alliance and Leicester. In 2003 Paul decided to change career and began working for the Defence Ordnance Safety Group where he worked as a numerical modeller and explosive effects scientist. In 2009 Paul studied for a Masters Degree in Explosive Ordnance Engineering at the Defence Academy. After graduation Paul decided to stay at the Defence Academy where he now works within the Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre.

Register via Eventbrite The application of requirements management to civil engineering-led, rail related, multi-disciplinary design and build projects has had varied success in recent years. Key UK Rail clients have their own requirements management processes and the challenge for designers has been to find the right processes to facilitate demonstrating compliance of design, for more than 10 different disciplines, with swift approvals, fixed construction deadlines and without introducing significant addition cost. In this presentation, Anne Bearne of Arup shares her experiences in delivering requirements management which meets the needs of client, and project managers and which design teams can efficiently embed within their design processes and outputs. This entails a tailoring of requirements management processes to respond to the way in which railway projects, and in particular largely civils based railway projects, are delivered. Register via Eventbrite

Workshop to develop framework that covers/relates major aspects: lifecycle, process, artefacts, stakeholders, lines of development etc.