Systems Engineering MSc Assignment

Cover Sheet
Peter Hale, University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE)
Continuing Professional Development in Aerospace - Systems Engineering
28th - 30th October & 16th - 17th November

Executive Summary

This assignment examines the systems engineering work at the University of the West of England, Bristol (my employer 2000-2008, and 2009-10). The particular focus is on application of this towards aerospace and modelling for Airbus and Rolls-Royce. It is argued in part a) that poor decision making by UWE led to this work being restricted, and that it needs rebuilding. Section 1 explains the reasons behind the problems, and ideas for recreating this system capability.

Section 2 part a) examines how change can be brought about to repair this damaged capability and a plan for rebuilding this, taking into account the problems already faced. Part b) describes the approach used to try to rebuild this capability and how to avoid problems which could hamper this. This approach is based on creation of systems that can be customised to produce other systems and models, and translation from abstract diagrammatic representations to computer representations.

The conclusion explains how this approach to modelling and end-user programming enables interoperability, and collaboration, and that this assists with Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information.

Systems Engineering MSc Module Assignment - Main part - http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgp7zcg6_344cxn8sxhs - Appendix - http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgp7zcg6_352c8j2w5cg.

More Customisable Software Systems

My experience of dealing with projects that create new software systems is that they are very ambitious, but not very modular or customisable. Under management pressure for meeting of timescales, they are often released too early with insufficient consultation with users. Then software developer's time is reallocated to a help desk, in order to deal with the problems caused by the release of software too early, too unchangeable and with too little user involvement.

A solution is to produce highly customisable software, so that the software team don't have to anticipate every problem the users will want to solve. Then many users with more advanced needs and computing abilities could customise software for their needs.