The Professional Development Surgery will provide an overview of both the Professional Registration process (Eng Tech, IEng and CEng) and the INCOSE Professional Certification process (ASEP, CSEP, ESEP). If you’re thinking of applying for either route, then come along to find out more and get some useful tips on your application and insights from qualified assessors. If you already hold one or both qualifications and are interested in becoming an Advisor or Assessor, then please also come along as we will be covering what these roles entail as well.

Systems Engineering has long been considered a difficult field to train new practitioners, largely due to the integrative role of the systems engineer which requires a deep understanding of a wide range of areas in a complex and dynamic environment. Educational games seem to offer a great deal of promise as an effective yet fun way of conveying complex ideas in a short period of time which allow players to test real project scenarios and experiment with and encouraging learning through “failures” that may not be acceptable in a real-world project.

In the proposed session, we use interactive ‘serious’ games as a medium to deal with complex systems engineering challenges, with the aim to increase awareness, inspire and educate. Through this session, participants (with various educational background, levels of seniority, and business sectors) will work in inclusive groups to generate ideas, develop, and playtest concepts, making sure that output game is inspirational and engaging for as wide a range of audiences as possible, by reflecting on their interests, motivations, and skills into design requirements.

During the session, each group might be working on games targeting a specific sector (one group focusing on defence, another on aerospace, another on infrastructure, and so on), or a particular range or type of audiences (one group developing games for aged 10-18, another targeting early careers, another targeting senior executives, and so on), or an emerging challenge faced by engineering community (one group focusing on sustainability, another on digital transformation, and so on). They will be supported by organisers as well as at least one senior systems engineer (ideally, ESEP-level) per group. They will also be given the opportunity to learn from the sample games that are already developed by systems engineering students at university.

The interactive and interdisciplinary nature of this session gives participants a unique discovery-based learning experience to think and act like a Systems Engineer through developing the game (enabling whole-system thinking, critical thinking, creative problem-solving, teamwork, and communication). In line with general systems engineering framework, participants will learn how to identify stakeholder needs and requirements, how to come up with alternative concepts reflecting those requirements, and how to turn concepts into a ‘useful’ product that is functional in various operating environments.

The proposed session can form part of a larger project funded by RAEng Ingenious Award which aims to use the power of educational games to promote systems engineering within younger generation of aged 10-18 across London. In addition to offering a fun learning experience for engineers of various types, the output of this session will be a set of games (and underlying development processes), each one addressing a particular challenge of systems engineering community, that will be refined throughout the RAEng project and disseminated in future INCOSE events.

All required material will be provided and there is no minimum requirement (or knowledge of systems engineering) will be required for this session. Also, for grouping purposes, advanced registration to this session will be required.

Systems Engineering 101 - Interfaces

Engineers like designing units that fulfil a functional purpose - nobody working on a project wants to be tasked with resolving interfaces. It generally happens too late and is seen to be a root cause of project failures. In effect, interfaces are often subject to the ‘Somebody Else’s Problem’ field, as described in Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” series. And yet, interface management is perceived as a critical skill in the engineering of successful systems, to those more experienced in dealing with integration problems.

Finding useful material dealing properly with interfaces proves elusive. It is not that there is a gap in the collective Body of Knowledge (BoK) – but there is definitely a gap in the documented BoK. This presentation explores characteristics of this gap, and strings together key concepts in best practice. Differences between best practice for interfaces and best perceived practice for architecting systems are noted, with recommendations for changes in approach.

The talk is based partly on the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook and partly on his INCOSE UK ‘Don’t Panic!’ guide to managing interfaces. It will cover the following principles and techniques:

    1.  Systems Engineering basics and their application to interfaces

    2.  Keeping functionality separate from exchanges across interfaces

    3.  Context diagrams

    4.  Sequence diagrams as a tool for capturing interface exchanges

    5.  Layered models as a design pattern

    6.  Black box and white box N² charts

    7.  Optimising architecture through iterative trial decompositions

    8.  Configuration states and the system lifecycle

    9.  Configuration and change management

   10. Integration and verification recommendations

   11.  Models, tools and documentation

   12.  A template for an IRS and ICD

Surgical Systems Engineering: Activities to remedy an ailing project

Attendees will be presented with a situation familiar to many systems engineers - acting as consultants to a project where systems engineering was not fully considered early on.

Through an engaging and entertaining activity, expect to learn and apply suggested methods and strategies to alleviate issues in this scenario. 

Surgical Systems Engineering: Activities to remedy an ailing project

 Attendees will be presented with a situation familiar to many systems engineers - acting as consultants to a project where systems engineering was not fully considered early on.

Through an engaging and entertaining activity, expect to learn and apply suggested methods and strategies to alleviate issues in this scenario. 

In 2015 INCOSE UK published it's first book, 'Think Engineer' by Jon Holt and aimed at school children. In 2016, we launched our first in the Don't Panic! series of books and we have now published over 15 titles, which have been sold in over 20 countries and have bee translated in Japanese and German. We currently have ten other titles in the pipeline, making us a world leader in Systems Engineering publications!

If you are interested in becoming an author, or are just curious about the process, join the Technical Director and meet some of the existing authors to find out how you can get more involved.

This session will provide an overview of modern System Safety Engineering and the role that Systems Engineers undertake in ensuring safe and effective systems.

Topic:

This session will explore how, as a community, we can be more inclusive.

We will cover questions like:

• What can we do to improve D&I in our industry?
• How do we build a culture of inclusion?
• What steps can we each take to truly embrace and utilise our differences?
• How can we be better allies and advocates to colleagues from minority groups?

Join us for a chance to explore these questions and start to build the skills and mindset needed to create a truly inclusive community.

Following this session there will be a room available to continue the conversation and network.

This session is open to the INCOSE UK Group Chairs and give them the oppourtunity to talk with INCOSE UK Directors.