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7.1.1 Reduction of Late Design Changes Through Early Phase Need Analysis
Author(s) -
Tranøy Eldar,
Muller Gerrit
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2014.tb03168.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , schedule , process (computing) , computer science , engineering design process , customer needs , phase (matter) , requirements engineering , systems engineering , risk analysis (engineering) , process management , engineering , business , marketing , biology , programming language , operating system , paleontology , chemistry , organic chemistry , software
Contractors in the oil and gas industry are experiencing an increased pressure to deliver projects at a lower cost and at a shorter schedule. Extensive requirements combined with strict governing documents restrict project designs. Therefore, contractors need efficient governing processes that capture customers' needs and ensure that system requirements relates to these customer needs. In the execution phase of a project, the engineering degrees of freedom are limited. In the early project phase of concept and study, the basic design is established. The design freeze occurs in the tender phase, based on a best interpretation of customer needs. This causes any changes made in the execution phase to be costly and have the potential to impose severe subsequent consequences. Proper use of systems engineering ensures a minimal amount of late design changes. The most important systems engineering process in such a context, is the capturing of customer needs and definition of user requirements. We researched the processes used to capture system requirements today, and the potential impact of using systems engineering techniques for this purpose. We uncovered multiple gaps in the current process of capturing customer needs, which subsequently led to the definition of system requirements based on international standards and best practices, instead of actual needs. Our research also showed that with a process of capturing customer needs based on systems engineering techniques, as much as 92% of the costs imposed by late design changes are avoidable.