INCOSE International Symposium 2012

Two Aerospace Concepts team members recently attended the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) International Symposium 2012 in Rome to present a poster of their paper ‘Documents are an Essential Part of Model Based Systems Engineering’.

In their paper Dr David Harvey, Program Lead  of Aerospace Concepts’ Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) program and Mr Paul Logan, MBSE Technical Lead, examined the nature and use of documents, both paper and electronic, in traditional and model-based methodologies, and identifies the evidentiary qualities of paper-based documents required for legal acceptance of electronic documents.

The keynote speakers were a standout feature of INCOSE IS2012 and included:

• Former Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security The Honorable Michael Chertoff, Chairman and Managing Principal from The Chertoff Group, who spoke on the Dilemma of the Digital Age: “Positive Creation – Negative Consequences”.
• Andrew McNaughton, Chief Engineer from High Speed Two (HS2) Limited, spoke on “Systems Engineering High Speed Rail”, showing an excellent application of Systems Engineering to solve a complex problem.
• Terence Cooke-Davies, Chair of Human Systems International Ltd, who spoke on the topic of “Systems Engineering and Project Management: Complementary disciplines, or competing paradigms?”. An interesting point that Terrence raised was that process and diagrams can be considered as equivalent to the white coat and stethoscope of the doctor, they are useful symbols to add credibility in the right hands, but they do not actually do much in and of themselves.
• Lorenzo Fiori, Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer for Finmeccanica Corporate, was the final keynote speaker for the symposium who spoke on “Leveraging Systems Engineering to Exploit Opportunities in Adjacent Markets and Foster Cross-sector Innovation in a Multi-domain Industrial Group”.