System Engineering Assignment On Different Case Scenarios

Question

Task:
Develop a system engineering assignment addressing the following questions:

Question 1

1. Explain what is meant by the term “system”. How do subsystems, systems and systems of systems differ?
2. Has the Australian government adopted a system engineering approach in its management of COVID-19? Explain your answer.

Question 2

1. Consider the conceptual design case study presented in the unit (Moggill Rd. / Coonan St. intersection upgrade). What additional information would you expect to be included in the actual project documents generated by the project team?
2. Safety critical recalls on cars being particularly newsworthy. Such recall of products due to safety concerns are costly to the organisation responsible and may damage reputation and consumer confidence. In terms of the Acquisition phase activities and artifacts, what caused such errors to occur? What strategies do you think that they could have taken to prevent these sorts of errors?

Question 3

1. Explain the difference between agile development (as initially formulated by the software community) and agility.
2. Explain how agility can be incorporated into engineered products / systems.

Question 4

1. Explain how a Requirements Breakdown Structure (RBS) is typically constructed. What information does it contain?
2. Discuss the process whereby requirements in the RBS are allocated to the physical architecture.

Question 5

1. Explain, using an example of your choosing, how TPMs constrain the evolving design process as we progress from conceptual design through to preliminary design and detailed design & development.
2. Discuss the relationship between project management and systems engineering.

Answer

Answer 1 (10 Marks)

1. A system can be defined as a collection of interacting entities which are able to work as a whole. A system is surrounded by an environment, which describes it limitations, a structure as well as the purpose of development of the system.

   As already stated a system is a collection of organized entities working together. A subsystem is a derived product of the system and often found to be a part of a larger system. A system of systems can be defined as a larger group of self-independent systems which are able to work together another bigger system. However the systems present in a system of systems are not called subsystems but they are complete system and are capable of running on their own.

2. The Australian government has taken up the initiative developing an application software for its people which would help the government to track their movement and travel history. This would provide the government with the data required to understand the flow of the virus around the continent. Checking for a high rise in the people affected in a certain area people travelling to the region can be stopped from getting infected and people from the region can be stopped from going out of the region. This would help in containing the virus in a smaller region and thus treatment of the affected patients would be faster.

Answer 2 (10 Marks)

1. Apart from the basic information provided by the project team the complete timeline for the completion of the project and the requirement breakdown structure would have been helpful in understanding the work that has been done. The timeline would help in the analysis of the work that has been done in order to understand if the work took longer than usual or was the project completed within the required amount of time. Similarly the timeline can also be used by other similar kinds of projects so that they would be able to keep their schedule in check and provide a faster delivery of the project. The requirement breakdown structure though is a small portion of the project can be helpful in understanding the requirements of the project and the priority which was set forward for the completion of the same.
2. A simple form of cost reduction can be enough to trigger the downfall of the safety precautions being taken to design and develop the vehicles. People are much more concerned about their safety while using a vehicle rather than the cost of the car. If the car is cheap then the safety would be minimal compared to a costly car. It should be taken into concern that the developers as well as the management needs to keep the safety of the car as well as their clients in mind when deciding the cost of manufacturing the car. Keeping a lower cut in the profit would help them in keeping their names in the market intact rather than recalling unsafe cars.

Answer 3 (10 Marks)

1. Agility is the ability with the help of which a change can be responded to. The companies are not able to apply change instantly and struggle with their work in order to perform. As the world is changing fast the businesses needs to be business agile in order to succeed. This can be achieved with the help of agile methodology. Agile can be defined as a collection of tools which can be used by a business to achieve agility in their business processes. Some well-known agile framework used by business are Kanban and Scrum.
2. As the agile methodology is able to use constant communication and collaboration among the customers and developers the management would be able to keep a track of the project that is being compiled. Based on the requirement of the client or customers the developers would be able to change their workflow to match the outcome needed for successful completion of the project. The management keeps a track with the client as well as the developers and exchange information between them. This keeps both the party in accordance to the workflow that is being done and the changes which are being requested.

Answer 4 (10 Marks)

1. After the verification of the requirements for the project the breakdown structure is made to understand the parts required for the development of the project. The hierarchical structure helps in keeping a track of the requirements of the project. This helps in the delivery of a successful project. The project manager can use the breakdown structure to guide the team into completing the task which is more important first. The main objective for the use of a requirement breakdown structure is to specify and establish the different kind of work that needs to be done for the project.
2. The purpose of the physical architecture is to elaborate the models which are being developed to get a better view of the physical solution. Once the logical architecture has been designed and established the physical elements are then identified which would be able to provide support, track temporal features and other behaviours as well as the properties which has been deduced from the non-functional requirement developed. The physical architecture can be defined as the arrangement of all the various physical elements which would be able to provide solution to a product, enterprise or about a service.

Answer 5 (10 Marks)

1. In the capability life cycle the two main phases are acquisition phase and the utilization phase. The acquisition phase is divided into four steps namely the conceptual phase, preliminary design, detailed design development and the production. In the conceptual design step the business model of a project is transformed into the project model for the development. It helps in proper definition of the requirements for the project. The logical architecture is finalizes and changed into the physical subsystem description in the preliminary design step. This architecture is able to meet the system requirement. In the detailed design and development phase the developers use their engineering ideas and develop separate subsystems which would them then assembled into a complete structural system for the project. In the production step, the components are developed and designed for the mas development of the same system.
2. The relationship between the system engineering and the project management can be found to be overlapping, partially joined or disjoined based on the work that is being done. The two teams are responsible for the proper guiding of the technical and the managerial issues of a project. It is however important to understand the proper scope of work for the two body. The system engineering keeps a track of the project plan, monitor the workflow, check the risk and finally deliver the technical part of the project. The project management is responsible for similar form of activities for the overall project. Thus based on the project they are able to share responsibilities or be completely detached from one another.