System Engineering - Our Perspective
Systems Engineering appears different to varying people, groups and industries. Here is how Avaliant defines and conducts Systems Engineering. Systems Engineering is a collection of processes, procedures and tools that are applied to define, develop, deploy and manage engineering projects. Systems Engineering is inherently interdisciplinary and its practitioners should be experts in one or more relevant technical fields. Additionally they possess skills and experience with Systems Engineering. If not, the result is just Requirements Management without Requirements Analysis & Decomposition which will lead to the generation useless counter productive and costly requirements.
There is not a single way to apply Systems Engineering practices to all engineering projects. Each project is unique and requires the correct subset of SE tools, processes and procedures to be successful. Applying unnecessary SE is expensive, time consuming and can lead to misdirection. Systems Engineering should be viewed as a “necessary evil” that must be applied with increasing scope and rigidity as the scale and complexity of the engineering project increases to ensure that the project outcome is successful, one schedule and budget and acheives the intended goals.
Avaliant’s System Engineering specialty is participating in the front-end SE activities of extremely complex system concepts that contain technical, management or complexity challenges which directly threaten the success of the project. The Avaliant team is best suited and has demonstrated an extensive track record of identifying the “lynchpin” program challenges, analyzing and/or simulating the situation, identifying solutions and assessing project feasibility. Avaliant understands the implications of "unsolvable challenges" and will establish the work around. In some cases, the outcome is a realization that the project goals are not obtainable within the defined constraints. It is important to identify this early and inexpensively.
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