Systems Engineering
Pedigree
Altran Praxis provides systems engineering support to clients in the aerospace, rail, automotive and other industry
sectors. Praxis treats all problems as systems engineering problems and makes use of
Lean Systems Thinking in solving them. Lean Systems Thinking brings together Lean Engineering and Systems Thinking.
Praxis offers a range of systems engineering services. Services typically operate at the organisation, programme, or technology level. Clients have ranged from small start-ups to major multinationals and cross-industry bodies. We have helped clients:
- Manage the risks of major technological and organisational changes.
- Manage requirements in support of high-end consumer product development.
- Develop requirements and designs for systems ranging from single components up to an entire railway.
- Carry out end-user and device context analysis through to end-user testing and product release.
- Establish verification and acceptance strategies for multi-billion pound programmes.
Focus
Our major goal is to support programmes where the impact of failures is a major concern; typically this means projects exhibiting the following factors:
- New or innovative technology.
- New organisational structures.
- Stringent regulatory requirements.
- Potential significant safety, security or environmental impact.
- Diverse or an ill-defined sets of stakeholders.
- Unclear, conflicting or highly demanding requirements.
Praxis also ensures it contributes to the advancement of the wider systems engineering community through participation in conferences and the generation of
whitepapers.
Approach
Praxis adopts a common approach to solving client problems embodied in our
High Impact Solving technique. This is underpinned by the fundamentals of Lean Systems Thinking which provide a common theme throughout our work:
- Clear requirements and concepts of operation define value, which is dependent on the environment and domain.
- Rich traceability and accurate information models support the value stream.
- Processes and verification activities are defined to avoid waste and promote flow.
- Customer pull is supported by flexible processes and effective management of change.
- Accurate and independent reporting promotes improvement and perfection.
Example Systems Engineering projects
All projects are complex, novel or high impact.
- Defined end-to-end integration strategy for IT systems in Heathrow T5.
- Developed a requirements validation model for a defence aircraft control system in Matlab™.
- Helped establish a requirements management process for railway UIC Euro-Interlocking.
- Carried out operational risk analysis and assessment for a key UK financial organisation.
- Completed full requirement lifecycle management for an automotive infotainment system.
- Led the specification and design teams for a new GSM train radio system, using UMLTM and Fusion.
Why Altran Praxis for Systems Engineering?
- Our use of Lean System Thinking can reduce programme cost, risk and duration.
- Praxis’ wide cross-industry experience allows lessons learned in many environments to support any programme.
- Mature techniques from high-assurance programmes make transparent, repeatable and auditable risk management available in a wide range of markets.
- Our approaches scale from small product developments through high volume consumer products to major infrastructure programmes.
Case reference
Requirements support for the West Coast Route Modernisation
Challenge
The Systems Engineering Group of the UK’s West Coast Route Modernisation
railway programme needed a major change in their requirements management process to account for significant changes in the programme scope. Existing design justifications traceability had been developed and maintained over more than five years; a pragmatic approach was required to support the delivery and acceptance case with very short timescale.
A team of Praxis consultants worked alongside the client’s functional and domain experts to define and populate a requirements model in DOORS™, and provide long-term support.
Outcome
We provided input into the new traceability model and produced the traceability and design justification; 58 per cent of the new traceability and design justification was established in just two months.