Systems Engineering Management (SEM) compliments traditional engineering management to deliver end state capability, functionality, safety through a cost and schedule optimised delivery of engineering projects.

Systems Engineering Management (SEM) is a methodology that helps organizations unlock the potential of complex projects by ensuring safety and efficiency.

This approach is particularly useful for projects that involve multiple stakeholders, multiple systems, and multiple interactions between those systems. In this blog post, we will take a closer look at what SEM is, how it works, and why it is becoming increasingly important for organizations of all sizes and industries.

Delivering complex programmes is a challenging task.

Systems Engineering (SE) aims to make this challenge a manageable affair. It is a multidisciplinary and integrative approach for realisation, delivery, operation and management of complex engineered systems.

Architecture defines the scope of the systems and hence the entire programme.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011 defines a system architecture as the fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution. Essentially, the system architecture provides concise and correct description of the system of interest.

With an uproar in the complexity of product and services required, even the most simple of the human needs are demanding a 'systemic' solution rather than a simple product. So let's revisit the basics and understand what a 'system' really is.

Internal and external projects produce a vast amount of data. Some of this is through a 'routine' process of executing the project tasks and some through the need to manage individual's work.

We observe that the habitual creation of data often removes the focus on how the data is to be used. For example, a deliverables tracker is updated more often by individual engineers, yet a resulting update to the project plans happens less frequently. This delay in reacting to the information reduces the productivity in a fast pace project environment, veering away from 'active management' to the 'reactive fire-fighting' to resolve the issues.