INCOSE UK´s London Local Group and The Institution of Engineering and Technology through the Systems Engineering Network have joined forces to reflect on this draft standard of a quality model. “In the new model for software quality in the draft ISO/IEC CD 25010 standard, the concept of quality in use has been broadened to embrace a wider range of issues than was common in usability” (Bevan, 2009)

The Systems Engineering Competency Framework and Guidelines documents were developed in response to an issue identified by the INCOSE UK Advisory Board (UKAB).whose member organisations wanted a common language with which to describe and discuss the competencies that are required to conduct good systems engineering. The objective was ‘to have a measurable set of competencies for systems engineering which will achieve national recognition and will be useful to the enterprises represented by the UKAB’.

Over the past two years Paul Shakspeare has been leading a project funded by the South West RDA to identify and resolve strategic skills gaps in the aerospace sector. As a result of this work a training and development strategy to respond to the skill shortages and professional development needs critical to the successful delivery of complex systems has been formulated. This session gives systems engineers, project managers and HR professionals a chance to feed into this process and help steer regional strategy and its associated funding.

The Annual General Meeting.

The INCOSE UK Rail Interest Group (RIG) is proud to be working with the IET to put on a one-day seminar at the IET's premises in Savoy Place, London on 11th November 2009 in 'Systems Engineering in Railways'. The seminar, delivered by senior figures within the rail industry, will illustrate the manner in which systems engineering techniques are becoming increasingly essential for modern railway engineers. Subtitled - ‘Making it work for you’, the seminar will be of value to anyone needing to understand the benefits of systems engineering techniques in a railway environment as well as providing an opportunity for systems engineers to explore the current state of the art in rail systems engineering. There is an optional, pre-seminar tutorial to ensure that the seminar is fully accessible to the non-expert so, after you have taken a look yourself, please consider passing the details on to any colleagues who might benefit from a better appreciation of systems engineering in railways. The programme is available at http://www.theiet.org/events/2009/systems-engineering-prog-280909.pdf and more general details are on the IET web-site at http://www.theiet.org/events/2009/railway-systems.cfm. You will also find details of how to book your place at the seminar on this page. Please note that you cannot book for this event via INCOSE UK - the IET is handling all bookings. If you cannot find the answer to your question on one of these web pages, please contact the RIG Chair, Bruce Elliott on bruce.elliott@arbutus-tc.co.uk

Does the manner in which systems engineering is carried out depend entirely upon the context in which it is done, or are there some universal principles which will always apply? This interactive workshop event will seek to tease out what the differences are in the practice of systems engineering across different domains, assess why they have come about, and see whether anything can be learned from the transfer of knowledge.

INCOSE 2010 International Workshop

Over to you – an opportunity to air your ideas in public. We can’t promise a prize for the best contributor, but we can be fairly sure of an enthusiastic and enquiring audience.

IMechE are running a TRIZ Rapid Innovative Problem Solving event on Thursday 18 June 2009 in the Royal Observatory Blackford Hill Edinburgh. TRIZ is a proven process for solving problems, generating new ideas and developing systems more quickly, cheaply and inventively than traditional methods. The TRIZ thinking tools are a rigorous and systematic approach for understanding and solving any problem; its principal tools enable you to uncover the most effective route to practical solutions, as well as the development of your next generation of products. For more information view the event flyer INCOSE UK Members are invited to attend the event at the IMeche Member rate.

One of the principal areas of concern for managing large programmes is the management of risk associated with change. The central issue is one of communication. This presentation proposes better methods of communicating change. An illustration of this is shown using the Victoria Line Upgrade project, where a visualisation of the configuration has improved communication. Areas of success are highlighted and a number of improvement areas identified.

Systems architecture is the means of turning a good idea into a viable product, practical system or usable process. So, for technologists, systems architecture provides hope that their brilliant idea won't die because it's been used the wrong way; for semi-academics in the spin-outs, it's a means of ensuring that their investment gives a good prospect of return via sellable, maintainable, reconfigurable products. The meeting will present different perspectives on systems architecting, drawing on client side systems management and supplier side approaches from different domains and at different scales, and debate the questions “what do open architectures and standards mean for your business, and can you use the wider methods, heuristics and ways of thinking of the system architect?

Systems Engineering was introduced to manage the complexity risk in large projects to replace, merge, augment and transition major mission critical systems. The success of SE has allowed more difficult and risky projects to be tackled which in turn has stimulated additional disciplines. This evolutionary cycle promises approaches to more “wicked” problems in “complex adaptive systems” as seen in the non-military evolution of “business capability” involving people, competencies and technical systems. The presentation will explore the challenges of the expanded problem domain and attempt to position the relationships between the disciplines.