SYSTEM ENGINEERING PROCESS - SIX KEY PHASES

C Hayward-Williams

INTRODUCTION

The System Engineering challenge is to ensure the optimum system is developed that best meets all
requirements and provides the proper balance of:

System performance
Life cycle cost
Development schedule
Risk

What do we mean by system? A system is a complete solution to a defined need in its full environment over
its prescribed lifetime. Systems may include hardware, software and associated documentation. Human
resources, non-human resources and esoteric factor may also form part of a system.

The complexity of systems is ever increasing through the application of new specialised technologies. Highly
complex software based systems are now the norm in both defense and industrial applications. Capital and
life cycle costs are escalating and environmental and political factors continue to influence system
requirements.

System engineering has responded to the need to manage the risk of ever expanding system complexity.
System engineering is the application of scientific and engineering efforts to:

Transform an operational need into a description of system performance parameters and a system
configuration through an iterative process

Integrate technical parameters and ensure compatibility of all interfaces, including physical,
functional and program, to optimize total system definition and design

Integrate other factors into the total engineering effort to meet cost, schedule and technical
performance objectives, including:

- reliability
- maintainability
- safety
- survivability
- human factors

The system engineer is responsible for the overall technical management and certification of the system. This
will include the definition, allocation and administration of requirements, in addition to the management of all
interfaces, both technical and human. The system engineer final deliverable is a system which meets the
mission, performance and functional requirements within cost and schedule. Thus, the proactive management
of risk is essential to the systems engineer.

Ms. C Hayward-Williams is with Booz.Allen & Hamilton Ltd, London UK

1/1
SIX KEY PHASES OF SYSTEM ENGINEERING

The system engineering process consists of six key phases:

Mission Requirements

Concept Development

Verification

4
f
Design Confirmation
&
Requirements Flow

The system engineering process is iterative, continually refining the system design to deliver the optimum
system which meets the mission requirements within cost and schedule.

Mission Requirements & Concept Development

Definition of mission requirements involves the evaluation and quantification of the users need. The output
should be a set of key criteria in which to evaluate proposed concept designs. Concept development involves
the brainstorming of systems which may meet the mission requirements, without regard for cost, schedule or
technical risk.

Performance Requirements Definition

Performance requirements definition involves the translation of the mission requirements into a detailed,
quantifiable set of system performance requirements. The first step is to determine the performance
requirements for all expected mission scenarios, addressing quantity, quality, timeliness, availability and
coverage. The second step is to define constraints to the system, including operations, compatibility (upward
and downward), environment, architecture and human factors.

Various tools are available to the system engineer which support this phase of the process, including
interaction diagrams, parametric analysis, system effectiveness models and risk analysis.

Bunctional Requirements Definition

Functional requirements definition involves the translation of system performance requirements into
functional requirements, sequences and interfaces. Functions should be grouped to reflect a single task, with a
single entry and exit point. Each function should be separately testable.

Various tools are available to the system engineer which support this phase of the process, including
Structured Design, N2 Diagrams, Functional Flow Block Diagrams and Timeline Analysis.

1/2
Design Confirmation & Requirements Flow

Design confirmation is the analysis, simulation and/or test of design options to determine the expected system
performance against the mission, performance and functional requirements. The iterative design process
enables designs to be optimised. The primary tools available to the system engineer include models and
simulations, yet it is important to note that these tools have varying degrees of limitation.

Design confirmation (and optimisation) supports the process of requirements flowdown. In many cases, this
involves the decomposition of performance requirements to the various subsystems. Traceability of this
“decomposition” is essential, especially throughout the design assurance stage of the process.

Design Assurance

Design assurance involves the timely review of design progression to ensure conformance to the performance
and functional requirements. Design assurance also verifies configuration processes and interface
management.

Technical performance measurement is an assessment of the design that predicts, through engineering
analysis, simulation and/or test, the value of system level performance. Technical performance measurement
is a useful tool to the system engineer throughout the design assurance stage, providing:

management visibility of actual vs. planned performance

early detection or prediction of performance that requires management attention
assessment of the programme impact of proposed change

Technical performance measures should always reflect the total system performance requirements, and should
be time phased to reflect the stages of system delivery. The measures should be derived directly from results
of functional analysis, simulation and/or test.

Verification

Verification is the timely, methodical process of ensuring that the system as developed will meet all
requirements. Methods used for verification include test, analysis, simulation and inspection. A system test
programme will defined the method to be used to verify various aspects of the system performance and
function.

SYSTEM ENGINEERING APPLICATION

For the Docklands Light Railway, BoozAllen & Hamilton and Brown & Root (in ajoint venture) were
responsible for completing the design and upgrading of new signalling system and new vehicle fleet and
implementing organisational changes. The was termed the System Prime Contract.

System Prime Contract was a performance based contract. Six milestone payments were based on the
successful demonstration of incremental improvements in system performance and reliability. The final
demonstration, System Performance Demonstration, involved the demonstration of 97% system service
availability over a 30 day period of revenue service.

System Engineering

The delivery of a light railway system, at a set level of system service availability, directly lends itself to the
application of system engineering principles. Although the System Prime Contract was let near the end of the
detailed design phase of the signalling contract and at the commissioning phase of the vehicle contracts, a
complete system engineering programme was set into place.

Mission Requirements & Concept Development

The mission requirement was specified within the contractual documentation of the System Prime Contract.
The mission was to design, integrate and commission a world class, automatic light railway system.

113
Performance Requirements Definition

As the System Prime Contract was performance based, again the performance requirements where specified in
the contract. The performance requirements were to achieve 97% system service availability.

Functional Requirements Definition

The successful demonstration of the 97% system service availability performance requirement was dependent
on the delivery of both,the existing vehicle contract and signalling contract, in addition to the specification,
design, integration and commissioning of a suite upgrades to the signalling system and vehicle fleet.

Based on the functional requirements of the vehicle and signalling contracts, upgrades to the signalling system
were defined to ensure the delivery of the overall system performance requirements. Engineering analysis
was the primary tool used to define the functional requirements for the upgrades, yet a simple simulation tool
was used to support the engineering analysis.

Design Confirmation & Requirements Flow

At the heart of the system engineering process was the confirmation that the signalling and vehicle designs
were delivered per the existing contract requirements contracts.

Design Reviews

Series of design reviews were put into place to review the signalling system functional requirements and to
assess progress against schedule. In areas where the design was not progressing, mini specifications were
developed to further define a set specific signalling functions.

Interface Management

In the early stages of the system engineering process, a technical interface matrix was developed to document
and classify all interfaces within the system. Using this matrix, interfaces with high risk of impacting either
system performance or safety were highlighted. Specific teams were put into place to manage high risk
interfaces. As an example, a specialised team of engineers and statisticians was mobilised to address the
accuracy of the ATC control of vehicle position (ATCNehicle Interface). Both statistical models and real
world testing were used to confirm the achievement of the requirement.

Performance Monitoring

The 97% system service availability performance requirement was decomposed to subsystem technical
performance targets. These targets were called hurdle rates. The hurdle rates identified levels of subsystem
performance required to progress through the system integratiodcommissioning programme. The actual
hurdle rate values (levels of subsystem performance) were set through a detailed modelling programme.

The tool used to model system reliability was the BoozAllen VistaTMmodel. For this project, VistaTMwas
significantly tailored to emulate the Alcatel, SELTRAC communications-based, automatic train control
system. The resultant simulation was called RAMD (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and
Dependability). RAMD was used both as a Monte Carlo simulation, where specific equipment failures and
associated restore times were randomly generated from user-prescribed distributions, and as a deterministic
simulation, where the user prescribed specific failures. Hurdle rates for specific subsystems were modelled
using the Monte Carlo simulation aspect of RAMD, and the resulting System Service Availability was them
calculated. The setting of hurdle rates was an iterative process, as tradeoffs were made through the design
process.

Design Assurance

As mentioned above, a system integration/commissioning programme was developed which both reflected the
need to incrementally confirm improvements in system performance in the “real world” and verify

1I4
achievement of performance for contractual payments. Detailed test plans were developed for each “stage” of
system integration testing, and resulting test reports reported performance against the hurdle rates.

Specific graphical representations of performance included skyline charts and waterfall diagrams. Skyline
charts tracked the number of specific failure modes (and the associated time to restore) for individual
subsystems. Waterfall diagrams identified which types of failures attributed to losses in system service
availability.

Audits of the signalling design and the vehicle design were performed throughout the Prime Contract. These
included fbnctional design audits, performance reviews and safety audits. The functional design audits were
unique, in that an independent brainstorming process was implemented to help the engineers think “outside”
the boundaries of the current design to identify flaws (or improvement potential).

Verification

A series of four performance demonstrations were used to judge the successful achievement of the 97%
System Service Availability requirement. Each demonstration represented a stage in the
integratiodcommissioning of the signalling system, vehicle fleet and upgrades.

CONCLUSION

System engineering ensures the delivery of the optimum system that best meets all requirements and provides
the proper balance of performance, cost, schedule and risk. System engineering has now been applied to the
transit industry, forming the backbone of the technical management of the Docklands System Prime Contract.
There are six key phases. There is really no magic, just the disciplined application of process and tools to
specify, document and manage the delivery of a system.

0 1997 The Institution of Electrical Engineers.

1/5 Printed and published by the IEE,Savoy Place, London WC2R OBL, UK.