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7.5.3 Common Sense – Uncommon Practice? Capability engineering examples from Rail and Defence
Author(s) -
Kemp Duncan,
Mollett Jennifer
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2012.tb01384.x
Subject(s) - process (computing) , maturity (psychological) , perspective (graphical) , adversary , capability maturity model , engineering , key (lock) , process management , engineering design process , computer science , systems engineering , engineering management , computer security , psychology , developmental psychology , software , artificial intelligence , programming language , operating system , mechanical engineering
Whilst there is a significant amount of information available on systems engineering of products, there is significantly less information available on how to systems engineer operational capabilities 1 . In some respects this is surprising – it is the operational capability that the sponsor requires –whether it is the ability to move large numbers of people into and out of central London, or to establish and sustain a bridgehead in enemy held territory. The paper describes an approach to developing operational capabilities. It describes how capability engineering can be viewed from several perspectives, including: An enquiry based perspective describing the seven key questions that all capability engineering programmes need to address if they are to be successful A structural perspective describing the relationship between purpose, operation concept, capability design and individual components of capability A process perspective describing the activities that need to be undertaken from realising there is a capability gap through to demonstrating that the new/changed capability has improved the situation The paper describes the interrelationships between the three perspectives, when to use them as part of Capability Engineering activities and why they are necessary and probably sufficient. The discussion topics in this paper are illustrated with two case studies from the Defence and Rail industries. Finally the paper suggests that the effectiveness of using the different perspectives will vary with the maturity of the organisations' capability engineering. Where capability engineering maturity is low the enquiry based perspective will be most useful, where it is more defined the structural and process perspectives will be more effective.