Systems Engineering for Scientists – By Clark Stacey and Joshuawith Shaylor Analysis Combining Synthesis
Systems Engineering for Scientists
by Clark Stacey (Email: clark.stacey@npl.co.uk) Joshua M. R. Shaylor (Email: joshua.shaylor@npl.co.uk) National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, TW11 0LW, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2021 by Clark Stacey and Joshua Shaylor. All rights reserved.
Abstract The United Kingdom’s National Physical Laboratory has developed a new approach to systems engineering that is specifically aimed at scientists engaged in designing and developing scientific measurement instruments. The default approach naturally employed by most scientists when starting the specification of an instrument is to break it down into its constituent parts and to focus on the scientific and technological aspects of the design. This paper describes a simple three-stage framework that emphasizes top-level requirements and synthesizing an understanding of the whole system-of-systems within which the instrument will operate. The framework includes a systematic approach to identifying and understanding the functional interactions that the instrument will have with other external systems. Initial trials of this framework within instrument development projects at NPL are discussed. The authors offer their views on its effectiveness at encouraging scientists to start the design process by taking a step back and understanding the whole design space, before focusing on the technology and scientific challenges. Keywords: Systems Engineering; Scientists; Psychology; Requirements; Specification; Synthesis; Analysis. Introduction The National Physical Laboratory (NPL 2020) has developed a new approach to systems engineering that is specifically tailored for the development of scientific measurement instrumentation by small teams of research scientists. It aims to address some of the organizational, cultural and psychological issues that can limit productivity and delivery when scientists are responsible for the whole product development lifecycle with only limited support in terms of engineering or marketing. In addition to utilizing knowledge from systems thinking and system engineering sources, such as the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (Walden et al. 2015) and the international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015 on systems and software engineering (ISO/IEC/IEEE 2015), this new approach also draws on insights from the disciplines of psychology, marketing and project management. The primary goal is to influence the scientist’s thinking and behavior in such a way that they take a more holistic and whole-lifecycle perspective during the early phases of a development project. This is intended to counter their intrinsic tendency to focus almost exclusively on the scientific and technological aspects of the development until much later in the project lifecycle. At that point it can be extremely expensive to rectify inappropriate design decisions that have been made due to a lack of consideration of the fundamental requirements and market demand for the product.
November 2021
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