UK Chapter

Following the successful launch of the Interest Group in April 2018, this will be our first working meeting.

If you would like to attend this meeting, please contact us via email on Michael.Gainford@es.catapult.org.uk

UK Healthcare is facing many challenges: an ageing population with increasing complexity of multiple long term conditions; improvements in medical care which can treat a larger number of conditions, and continued budget pressures and raising expectations. Healthcare is a complex socio-technical system, and identifying and devising interventions with clear net benefits is a challenge: a classic ‘wicked problem’. 

This talk is a presentation of a paper by Johnson, Harding, Smith and Beck that recently won Best Paper award at the 2018 INCOSE International Symposium in Washington DC USA.  It covers an outreach project that took place last year to support, through a series of facilitated workshops using systems approaches, a multidisciplinary project led by the NHS in Shropshire to improve services for the frail elderly.  It will explain the context, the nature of the workshops and techniques applied, and the outcomes, including a coherent prioritised work programme, with buy-in from all stakeholders.   The approaches used included, Systemigrams, Causal Loop Modelling, N2 Diagrams, Class Diagrams and others.

The presenter, Julian Johnson (INCOSE CSEP), was one of the 3 strong outreach team.  He has been an active member of INCOSE since 1997 and contributed to OMG Systems Modelling Language (SysML). From 1987-2015 he held roles in BAE SYSTEMS focussed on systems process improvement He is now Director of Holistem Ltd., a systems engineering consultancy focussing on early-phase systems engineering activities.

1700H Doors Open, 1725H-1845H Event

Finding people with the right skills to perform railway Systems Engineering (SE) is a challenge that is frequently discussed at RIG meetings. The INCOSE SE Competence Framework cannot solve that problem but it can contribute to a solution by providing an objective means of assessing SE competence which, in turn, can underpin recruitment and staff development.

The Framework was originally developed by organisations in the defence sector but is being increasingly applied in the rail domain. This event will provide an opportunity for those curious about the Framework to understand not only what it is and how it works but also to learn how it can deliver value, what the challenges are and how these challenges may be overcome.

Kevin Gedge of Network Rail and Jane Sanders of Bombardier Transportation are both involved in deploying the Framework within their organisations, They will introduce the Framework, describe their experience of using it, outline some of the challenges that their organisations have faced and describe how these challenges have been overcome.

Ian Presland of Charterhouse Systems is Professional Development Director at INCOSE and a key member of the INCOSE International Competency Working Group. Ian will introduce the recently-released internationally-agreed version of the Framework, describing how it was developed and a pilot project to use competency as a basis for assessing applications for Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) status.

This event is being allocated a slightly longer slot than normal to allow others to contribute their experiences and views with the aims of starting to form an industry view on the Framework and to establish a network of people interested in the Framework in order to foster further exchange of experience. 

The meeting will take place at SNC-Lavalin Atkin's offices in Euston Tower 286 Euston Road London NW1 3AT.  There is no charge for attendance and the event is open to non-members but places must be booked in advance.  To book, obtain directions or to ask any other questions, please contact RIG Organiser, Michael Morua at m.morua@fnc.co.uk or call 07763455171.

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) is an international professional society for systems engineers whose mission is to foster the definition, understanding, and practice of world-class systems engineering in industry, academia, and government

The INCOSE UK Rail Interest Group has been formed: 

• To provide a forum for those interested in Systems Engineering in rail to network in a less formal environment, to exchange good practice and to provide mutual support in an area which can require some sustained perseverance;
• To promote, improve and share the practice of Systems Engineering within the rail industry;
  
•  To foster connections with other professional bodies within rail and thereby promote cross fertilisation of knowledge and experience across sectors and community disciplines; and
  
• To promote awareness of INCOSE UK and encourage membership within the rail industry.
  

For further information about the RIG, see www.incoseonline.org.uk and follow the ‘Groups’ link.

Earlier this year we made plans for 2018 and the next event in the calendar will be our summer meeting on the 25^th of July 2018. Leonardo have kindly agreed to host us at their Luton site, with a number of items on the agenda from senior engineers talking about their career paths, to a walk about tour of some of Leonardo’s sensing products leading into their integration lab where they perform integration tests of one of their most important products.

This is a great chance to get more involved with the Early Careers Forum (ECF), meet a number of your peers as well as industry experts and senior engineers. We will also be discussing the ECF’s priorities and taking forward a number of objectives we’d like to achieve in the near future.

If you are able to join us, please confirm your attendance to emmah@dot-the-eye.com by the 20^th of July2018, providing your full name, company and nationality. Leonardo have kindly offered to supply us with lunch so please can you also specify any dietary requirements when you contact us.

For the agenda, furhter details and/or if you wish to attend (and you're not in our google group) please email the chair (details on contacts page)

Dominic Taylor, Systra Scott Lister

Alexei Iliasov, University of Newcastle

Thursday, 1st March, London 1700H Doors open, 1730H-1830H Presentation

The increasing complexity of modern railway signalling systems, both in terms of geographic coverage and of functionality, poses a major challenge to verification of compliance with safety requirements. The challenge is exacerbated by the scarcity of skilled resources to undertake verification activities in proportion to the number of projects underway. Automation of design and / or verification of configuration data for signalling systems has been proposed as a means of addressing this challenge.

This presentation presents a practical approach to automated verification that uses computer science formal methods to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of verification activities whilst integrating with existing processes.

Formal methods are mathematical techniques for the specification, design, analysis and verification of software and hardware systems. They have been successfully used in several industrial domains, including transport, defence, telecommunications and nuclear power. Recent advances in formal methods are making it possible to successfully apply them in developing a range of complex applications. Development of computerised railway signalling systems is an area in which formal methods are now becoming widely used.

The meeting will take place in Mott MacDonld's office in 10 Fleet Place, London, EC4M 7RB. There is no charge for attendance and the event is open to non-members but places must be booked in advance. To book, obtain directions or to ask any other questions, please contact RIG Organiser Karl King on k.king@fnc.co.uk or 07403 293935.

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) is an international professional society for systems engineers whose mission is to foster the definition, understanding, and practice of world-class systems engineering in industry, academia, and government

The INCOSE UK Rail Interest Group has been formed:

• To provide a forum for those interested in Systems Engineering in rail to network in a less formal environment, to exchange good practice and to provide mutual support in an area which can require some sustained perseverance;
• To promote, improve and share the practice of Systems Engineering within the rail industry;
• To foster connections with other professional bodies within rail and thereby promote cross fertilisation of knowledge and experience across sectors and community disciplines; and
• To promote awareness of INCOSE UK and encourage membership within the rail industry.

 For further information about the RIG, see www.incoseonline.org.uk and follow the ‘Groups’ link.

The Scottish local groups next meeting has now been arranged and will be held in Glasgow on the 18^th April. There has been some new interest in the group and so likely to be some new faces, all are welcome.

The main focus on this meeting will be around how we take the local group forward, focusing on what systems engineering means to each of us.

Light refreshments will be available.

Please note that due to building restrictions it’s necessary to provide citizenship information in advance of the meeting. Therefore if you have not already done so before please provide this information and your name in an email to paul.wylie@uk.thalesgroup.com.

Initial kick-off meeting of new Interest Group - INCOSE UK Energy Systems

System Safety in the Big Data World
Julian Stow, Institute of Railway Research, University of Huddersfield 

 Wednesday, 28th March 2018,

 Atkins, Euston Tower, 286 Euston Rd, London NW1 3AT
1700H Doors open, 1730H-1830H Presentation

The paper outlines research being undertaken at the University of Huddersfield Institute of Railway Research to understand how the big data revolution might be applied to enhance railway system safety with the eventual goal of moving from lagging indicators to real-time or even possibly leading safety indicators. The paper will examine the most promising applications identified to date and will illustrate these with examples from research projects currently underway at the University. These include automating analysis of free text records of safety ‘close calls’, developing tools to count red approaches to signals on a national basis to aid understanding of SPADs and approaches to integrating big data into safety bow ties. It will discuss the parallels between big data to enhance safety and operational performance and it will briefly consider the possible impacts on the staff who have to deliver the daily operation of the railways in the future. The paper concludes with the authors personal views on the potential future developments in this field.

Julian Stow is Assistant Director at the Institute of Railway Research at the University of Huddersfield. He has 18 years’ experience in the rail industry specialising in rail vehicle dynamics and wheel-rail interface engineering and he has led a wide range of projects for the GB rail industry in these areas. He is currently responsible for the delivery of a programme of research work under the strategic partnership between RSSB and the University of Huddersfield. Julian is a chartered engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

The meeting will take place at Atkins, Euston Tower, 286 Euston Rd, London NW1 3AT. There is no charge for attendance and the event is open to non-members but places must be booked in advance. To book, click book button on the INCOSE Calendar for this event or contact the RIG Board Member, Mike Morua at m.morua@fnc.co.uk.

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) is an international professional society for systems engineers whose mission is to foster the definition, understanding, and practice of world-class systems engineering in industry, academia, and government

The INCOSE UK Rail Interest Group has been formed:

• To provide a forum for those interested in Systems Engineering in rail to network in a less formal environment, to exchange good practice and to provide mutual support in an area which can require some sustained perseverance;

• To promote, improve and share the practice of Systems Engineering within the rail industry;

• To foster connections with other professional bodies within rail and thereby promote cross fertilisation of knowledge and experience across sectors and community disciplines; and

• To promote awareness of INCOSE UK and encourage membership within the rail industry.

  For further information about the RIG, see www.incoseonline.org.uk and follow the ‘Groups’ link.

Reports on appliction of ideas and ways forward.

Review of work on sections for handbook.

MBSE and how it is applied to real engineering challenges within Airbus Defence and Space.

How we improved our engineering effort by adoption of model based techniques. The MBSE implementation enhanced the planning, requirements engineering, design and testing aspects of the design lifecycle. The presentation will also touch on how to monitor progress of the model based engineering effort.

Speaker: Dennis Gilman

To attend, please provide Dennis (dennis.gilman@airbus.com) by COP Thursday, 11th Jan 2018 with 

a.       Full name;

b.      Company affiliations;

c.       Contact telephone number;

d.      Contact email;

Bring along photo ID (e.g. driving licence or passport) on the evening

As part of his academic research into producing a Systems Engineering Framework for Railway Control and Safety Systems, Karl King has produced a generic functional model for these systems which he has concluded can be modelled as a closed-loop negative feedback control system. Karl proposes that utilising this system model and approaching the Railway Control and Safety System from the point of view of a closed-loop negative feedback system will make it more clear what sub-systems are responsible for achieving and maintaining a required number of trains per hour from the service and therefore enable a more targeted approach to railway upgrades.

This presentation will describe the development of Karl's model and explain how it can be shown to be analogous to a negative-feedback control system as well as how this will enable a more targeted approach to upgrading Railway Control and Safety Systems to achieve improvements in line capacity

There is no charge for attendance and the event is open to non-members but places must be booked in advance. To book, obtain directions or to ask any other questions, please contact the RIG Chair, Bruce Elliott at bruce.elliott@altran.com or on +44 (0)7970 694043.

The INCOSE EMEA Workshop 2017 is the event for Systems Engineers from the EMEA region to contribute to the state of the art in Systems Engineering. Unlike the International Symposium and the national conferences, there are no paper, panel or tutorial presentations. Instead, attendees spend three days working alongside fellow Systems Engineers who are there to make a difference. Systems Engineers at all levels and from all backgrounds are encouraged to engage in working sessions, and to contribute their knowledge and experience to take the discipline forward.

The objective of this workshop is to meet with experts from different domains of Systems Engineering and different countries from around the world. During the workshop, you will have the opportunity to exchange your ideas and experience to move forward on the selected Systems Engineering topics.

Effectively engaging operations personnel in the very earliest stage of railway projects is essential if we are to avoid extensive rework or having to live with operational workarounds for sub-optimal decisions at the beginning.

Michael Coultharde-Steer, Lead Operational Development Manager at LU, will describe how and where significant benefits accrue from involving Operational input in the context of major upgrade programmes and how User Requirements Specifications are derived by a small team that includes operational end-user representatives and LU’s system engineers.

For further details pleasee see attached flyer.

The presentation is being arranged by the South East Branch of the Institution of Railway Operators (IRO) in collaboration with the INCOSE UK Railway Interest Group.

There is no charge for attendance and the event is open to those who are not INCOSE or IRO members but places must be booked in advance.

BOOKING FOR THIS EVENT IS VIA THE IRO.

Please book by emailing se.comms@railwayoperators.co.uk. To ask any other questions, please contact the RIG Chair, Bruce Elliott at bruce.elliott@altran.com or on +44 (0)7970 694043.

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

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

At 2245 on Saturday 5th December 2015, the primary substation in Lancaster was inundated with flood water from the River Lune following heavy rain as part of Storm Desmond, cutting power supplies to 61,000 properties. Managing the effect of the extreme weather was an operational challenge for Electricity North West, but what was more notable was severe the impact the loss of supplies had on other services across the the city, highlighting the reliance of modern society on a reliable electricity supply.

Since a series of recent floods, resilience has become a hot topic within the utilities sector, and in 2014 BSI published BS 65000 on Organisation Resilience. The Rockefellar Institute have also developed the 100 Resilient Cities programme (of which Bristol and Glasgow are a part) to look at how a city become resilient to a range of challenges.

Do system engineers have a role to play in developing civic resilience, and how could systems engineering techniques be used to enable communities, towns and cities to respond to major shock, natural or otherwise?

This session will start with a some scene-setting, but then open up into an extended discussion-come-workshop to share ideas on what resilience means from a systems perspective, and how this can be applied to a community, town or city.

This is a regualar meeting of the MBSE Interest Group and will include (subject to availability) presentations from Changan UK (automotive), Jaguar Land Rover (automotive), UKAEA (power generation) and possibly a tour of some of the facilities at Culham.

Attendees must pre-regesiter to attend and will require photographic id to gain access to the site. Registration closes on 17 April 2017.

Location details can be found here and public transport details here

As ever, this Bristol Local Group talk is open to INCOSE members and non-members alike.  We look forward to welcoming you.