Towards a method to deploy systems engineering processes within companies

Systems Engineering (SE) approach is a tried and tested approach that promotes and coordinates all appropriate processes to design, develop and test a system. These SE processes have been defined in many standards which are not always consistent with each other and often provide only generic indications. Therefore, companies seeking to apply the SE approach must answer themselves the following questions: how to tailor these generic processes to their company? What methodology must be applied to deploy SE processes? How to ensure the success of this deployment? The purpose of this paper is to present the two main principles of a SE processes deployment methodological approach currently under development and applied to a helicopter manufacturer. These principles are: 1) The description of the set of activities necessary for the deployment, 2) The main concepts necessary to the approach, gathered and shortly formalised in a global meta-model

Mixing Systems Engineering and Enterprise Modelling principles to formalize a SE processes deployment approach in industry

12 pagesInternational audienceSystems Engineering (SE) is a tried and tested methodological approach to design and test new products. It acts as a modelbased engineering approach and promotes for this purpose a set of standardized collaborative processes, modelling languages and frameworks. In a complementary way, Enterprise Modelling (EM) provides concepts, techniques and means to model businesses along with their processes. The purpose of this paper is to provide a method for the deployment of SE processes considering interoperability and building bridges between SE and EM. An application case is given illustrating the definition of the stakeholder requirements definition process defined in the ISO 15288:2008

Customizable Interoperability Assessment Methodology To Support Technical Processes Deployment In Large Companies

International audienceIncreasing competition on markets induces a vital need for companies to improve their efficiency and reactivity. For this, a solution is to deploy, improve and manage their processes while paying a special attention on the abilities of the resources those involve. Particularly, the interoperability of the latter is considered in this article as a challenge conditioning the success of the deployment. Consequently, this paper presents a methodology to assess interoperability of people, material resources and organisation units involved or that could be involved in a process, all along the deployment effort. This methodology is usable for prevention, detection and correction of interoperability problems

Application of an Enterprise Modelling approach to deploy Systems Engineering processes in large organizations

Enterprise Modelling (EM) enables the representation of companies' activities, of their resources along with their roles and responsibilities in order to share the company's knowledge and support performance analysis. For this, EM promotes various concepts, techniques, frameworks, modelling languages and tools today widely used in companies. Currently, even a partial model of an enterprise constitutes a way to communicate, to share advices, to analyse and to make decisions. Therefore, EM appears to be a privileged tool to support any business change management. In a complementary way, Systems Engineering (SE) is a tried and tested methodological approach to design and test new products whatever their complexity or nature. Nowadays SE is considered in industry as a competitive and structured approach enabling a company to manage design activities and more generally to improve its capacity and ability to design complex systems efficiently. SE acts as a model-based engineering approach and promotes to this end a set of standardized collaborative processes, modelling languages and frameworks. Thus, when considering large companies designing complex systems such as a helicopter manufacturer, first it appears critical to be able to adapt processes proposed by SE standardization according to the business specific needs. This tailoring must be guided in order to consider the inherent complexity of the organization, the various human actors' profiles and skills, tools and stakeholders involved in the design of new products. As they all have to communicate and interact efficiently together their abilities and capacities to be interoperable i.e. to really work together should be analysed and improved accordingly before going further. Then, it appears necessary to prepare the company for the required changes, and to deploy in situ the adopted SE processes taking into account not only company's classical constrains and objectives but also the current level of interoperability of its elements. Finally, company managers must become able to control and adjust these processes from the cradle to the grave according to feedbacks from their stakeholders. To support all these activities, Enterprise Modelling (EM) provides several techniques, modelling languages, reference models and interoperability assessment methods which have been adapted and applied in this research work. The purpose of this article is threefold: 1) to provide a state of the art in interoperability, Systems Engineering (SE), and EM to illustrate how these disciplines are interrelated, to identify the needs they imply in the deployment, to discuss lacks in existing works considering these needs and thus to formulate how we aim to meet them, 2) to present an approach based on EM helping companies to lead changes required to apply SE principles and aiming to promote interoperability; and 3) to introduce the modelling environment proposed to support the approach including an ontology, an extension of BPMN 2.0 and software tools

Interoperability Assessment in the Deployment of Technical Processes in Industry

6 pagesInternational audienceIncreasing competition on markets induces a vital need for companies to improve their efficiency and reactivity. For this, a solution is to deploy, improve and manage their processes while paying a special attention on the abilities of the resources involved. Particularly, the interoperability of the latter is considered in this article as a challenge conditioning the success of the deployment. Consequently, this paper presents a mean to assess interoperability of the resources involved in a process during all its life cycle

Contribution à la prise en compte de l’interopérabilité pour le déploiement de processus complexes dans une grande entreprise : proposition d’un guide méthodologique outillé pour les processus d’Ingénierie Système

Companies whose primary business is the design and the supply of complex systems try to constantly improve their performances to be ahead of their international competitors. For this, a solution is to deploy, improve and manage Systems Engineering processes. Indeed, among other things, this may enable companies improving the quality of their services but also the reactivity with which they supply them.Nonetheless, this deployment requires paying a special attention to needs, abilities and motivations of resources and organisations, should they be internal or external to the company, likely to be involved in the deployment or execution of these processes. Thus, mastering their interoperability should be considered as an important need and should be considered as a key factor in the deployment.Moreover, since a process deployment implies to structure the work share, to modify the organisation and the functioning of enterprises, the latter must be able to carry out considerable effort to understand, anticipate, adapt and lead the change. However, they often experience difficulties considering the few pragmatic and applicable solutions available to directly deploy processes in industry.To meet these needs, this thesis research aims to supply a methodological and technical guide that enables getting over obstacles preventing or impeding the success of the deployment. It is here applied for the deployment of Systems Engineering processes in an aeronautics context. More precisely, this work focus on processes in charge of the design of helicopters along with services related to them.Consequently, the global contribution of this thesis consists in the definition of an equipped methodological guided to support the deployment of processes in a company that is multi-sites and multi-cultural. This guide includes:•A detailed comparative analysis of international Systems Engineering norms applicable in a aeronautics,•A meta-model that enables sharing a common vision/understanding of concepts required for the deployment,•A maturity model that enables appraising the readiness of a company for the deployment,•A formalised deployment methodology (BPMN 2.0 and an underlying formal model) that is unambiguous and that can be easily automated,•A methodology enabling the assessment of the interoperability of resources and organisation units to involve in a process to deploy, mathematically formalised and equipped with typical questionnaires to facilitate its immediate application,•Processes models and more particularly the one in charge of the stakeholders requirements definition to validate the deployment methodology,•A consistent and interoperable set of computer applications including a workflow engine, modelling tools, applications for the assessment of maturity and interoperability, an application to collect knowledge in models and a document generator.Les entreprises dont le cœur de métier est orienté vers la conception et la production de systèmes réputés complexes cherchent en permanence à améliorer leur position sur des marchés généralement mouvants face à la concurrence internationale. Une des solutions possibles consiste à déployer, améliorer et gérer des processus d'Ingénierie Système. Entre autres avantages, les entreprises peuvent par ce biais espérer gagner à la fois en termes de qualité de leurs prestations et de réactivité avec laquelle elles les fournissent.Ce déploiement nécessite cependant de porter une attention particulière aux besoins, capacités et motivations des ressources et organisations, tant internes qu'externes à l'entreprise, devant être impliqués dans le déploiement ou l'exécution de ces processus. De fait, la maîtrise de leur interopérabilité doit être considérée comme un facteur clef de la réussite du déploiement. Par ailleurs, comme le déploiement de processus appelle à structurer le travail, à modifier l'organisation et le fonctionnement même des entreprises, ces dernières doivent être en mesure de mettre en œuvre des efforts importants de compréhension, d'anticipation, d'adaptation voire de gestion du changement. Elles se trouvent alors souvent dépourvues face au peu de solutions pragmatiques disponibles et applicables réellement pour déployer des processus en milieu industriel.Pour répondre à ces besoins, les travaux de recherche développés au cours de cette thèse ont pour objectif de fournir un cadre méthodologique et technique permettant de lever certains des verrous empêchant ou freinant la réussite du déploiement de processus. Ils sont appliqués ici au déploiement de processus d'Ingénierie Système dans un contexte aéronautique. Ils concernent plus particulièrement les processus d'ingénierie de produits de type hélicoptère et des services associés.La contribution globale de ces travaux consiste donc à définir un guide méthodologique outillé pour assister le déploiement de processus dans une entreprise multi-sites et pluridisciplinaire. Ce guide inclut :•Une analyse comparative détaillée des standards de l'Ingénierie Système applicable en aéronautique,•Un méta-modèle permettant d'établir une vision/compréhension partagée des concepts nécessaires au déploiement,•Un modèle de maturité permettant de connaitre le degré de préparation de l'entreprise pour le déploiement,•Une méthodologie de déploiement formalisée (BPMN 2.0 et modèle formel sous-jacent) facilement automatisable et non ambiguë,•Une méthodologie d'évaluation de l'interopérabilité des ressources et des unités d'organisations à impliquer dans un processus à déployer, formalisée mathématiquement et outillée entre autres par des questionnaires types facilitant son application immédiate,•Des modèles de processus et en particulier celui de définition des exigences réalisé pour valider la méthodologie de déploiement,•Un ensemble cohérent et interopérable de solutions informatiques comprenant un moteur de workflow, des outils de modélisation, des outils d'évaluation de la maturité et de l'interopérabilité, une application récupérant la connaissance des modèles et un générateur de documents

Contribution to the consideration of interoperability for the deployment of complex processes in a large company : proposition of a methodological and equipped guide for Systems Engineering processes

Les entreprises dont le cœur de métier est orienté vers la conception et la production de systèmes réputés complexes cherchent en permanence à améliorer leur position sur des marchés généralement mouvants face à la concurrence internationale. Une des solutions possibles consiste à déployer, améliorer et gérer des processus d'Ingénierie Système. Entre autres avantages, les entreprises peuvent par ce biais espérer gagner à la fois en termes de qualité de leurs prestations et de réactivité avec laquelle elles les fournissent.Ce déploiement nécessite cependant de porter une attention particulière aux besoins, capacités et motivations des ressources et organisations, tant internes qu'externes à l'entreprise, devant être impliqués dans le déploiement ou l'exécution de ces processus. De fait, la maîtrise de leur interopérabilité doit être considérée comme un facteur clef de la réussite du déploiement. Par ailleurs, comme le déploiement de processus appelle à structurer le travail, à modifier l'organisation et le fonctionnement même des entreprises, ces dernières doivent être en mesure de mettre en œuvre des efforts importants de compréhension, d'anticipation, d'adaptation voire de gestion du changement. Elles se trouvent alors souvent dépourvues face au peu de solutions pragmatiques disponibles et applicables réellement pour déployer des processus en milieu industriel.Pour répondre à ces besoins, les travaux de recherche développés au cours de cette thèse ont pour objectif de fournir un cadre méthodologique et technique permettant de lever certains des verrous empêchant ou freinant la réussite du déploiement de processus. Ils sont appliqués ici au déploiement de processus d'Ingénierie Système dans un contexte aéronautique. Ils concernent plus particulièrement les processus d'ingénierie de produits de type hélicoptère et des services associés.La contribution globale de ces travaux consiste donc à définir un guide méthodologique outillé pour assister le déploiement de processus dans une entreprise multi-sites et pluridisciplinaire. Ce guide inclut :• Une analyse comparative détaillée des standards de l'Ingénierie Système applicable en aéronautique,• Un méta-modèle permettant d'établir une vision/compréhension partagée des concepts nécessaires au déploiement,• Un modèle de maturité permettant de connaitre le degré de préparation de l'entreprise pour le déploiement,• Une méthodologie de déploiement formalisée (BPMN 2.0 et modèle formel sous-jacent) facilement automatisable et non ambiguë,• Une méthodologie d'évaluation de l'interopérabilité des ressources et des unités d'organisations à impliquer dans un processus à déployer, formalisée mathématiquement et outillée entre autres par des questionnaires types facilitant son application immédiate,• Des modèles de processus et en particulier celui de définition des exigences réalisé pour valider la méthodologie de déploiement,• Un ensemble cohérent et interopérable de solutions informatiques comprenant un moteur de workflow, des outils de modélisation, des outils d'évaluation de la maturité et de l'interopérabilité, une application récupérant la connaissance des modèles et un générateur de documents.Companies whose primary business is the design and the supply of complex systems try to constantly improve their performances to be ahead of their international competitors. For this, a solution is to deploy, improve and manage Systems Engineering processes. Indeed, among other things, this may enable companies improving the quality of their services but also the reactivity with which they supply them.Nonetheless, this deployment requires paying a special attention to needs, abilities and motivations of resources and organisations, should they be internal or external to the company, likely to be involved in the deployment or execution of these processes. Thus, mastering their interoperability should be considered as an important need and should be considered as a key factor in the deployment.Moreover, since a process deployment implies to structure the work share, to modify the organisation and the functioning of enterprises, the latter must be able to carry out considerable effort to understand, anticipate, adapt and lead the change. However, they often experience difficulties considering the few pragmatic and applicable solutions available to directly deploy processes in industry.To meet these needs, this thesis research aims to supply a methodological and technical guide that enables getting over obstacles preventing or impeding the success of the deployment. It is here applied for the deployment of Systems Engineering processes in an aeronautics context. More precisely, this work focus on processes in charge of the design of helicopters along with services related to them.Consequently, the global contribution of this thesis consists in the definition of an equipped methodological guided to support the deployment of processes in a company that is multi-sites and multi-cultural. This guide includes:• A detailed comparative analysis of international Systems Engineering norms applicable in a aeronautics,• A meta-model that enables sharing a common vision/understanding of concepts required for the deployment,• A maturity model that enables appraising the readiness of a company for the deployment,• A formalised deployment methodology (BPMN 2.0 and an underlying formal model) that is unambiguous and that can be easily automated,• A methodology enabling the assessment of the interoperability of resources and organisation units to involve in a process to deploy, mathematically formalised and equipped with typical questionnaires to facilitate its immediate application,• Processes models and more particularly the one in charge of the stakeholders requirements definition to validate the deployment methodology,• A consistent and interoperable set of computer applications including a workflow engine, modelling tools, applications for the assessment of maturity and interoperability, an application to collect knowledge in models and a document generator