- Shifted focus from mechanical to software and electric / electronics domains
- Increased complexity in the product and the system-of-systems (e.g. connected services, charging infrastructure)
- Regulatory compliance for global markets
Systems Engineering as a Business Transformation
The adoption of systems engineering is not a small change in the engineering department, it is rather a transformation of the process / method / tool / organization (PMTO) landscape of the enterprise. Examples of these transformative changes are:
- System breakdowns and functional structures as the skeleton of the virtual product – instead of EBOMs with mechanical parts
- Organization of departments and project teams according to the logical system structure
- Traceability in the vertical (RFLP: requirements-functional-logical-physical) and horizontal (requirements -> tests) axis of the V model
- New IT tools and methods, e.g. for system architecture modeling
Management of the Business Transformation
As a large organizational change program, the adoption of Systems Engineering in an organization requires management, i.e. planning, budgeting, prioritization, monitoring etc.
As a first step, the structure of the change program in terms of affected business capabilities should be established. For this, NTT DATA has developed a business capability map for automotive systems engineering based on standards such as ISO 15288 and Automotive SPICE. A maturity assessment of the process and IT landscape for the main business capabilities is a good starting point for the planning of a Systems Engineering roadmap.
Business – IT alignment for Systems Engineering
The concept of business capabilities has its roots in the Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) methodology, please refer to TOGAF. A major benefit of this approach is the integrated view on business topics (processes, organization, roles, objectives, transformation programs…) and IT topics (applications, interfaces, data, infrastructure…). This recognizes that most process improvements are supported – or even driven – by IT applications. An example is the support of regulatory compliance with NTT DATA’s homologation platform CERTassist. It’s module for legal requirements management can analyze regulations and break them down into atomic requirements. This AI-based functionality changes the traditional processes and methods for homologation.
Agile, anyone?
Agility is not only on the agenda of the engineering management (-> Agile PDP / Agile Systems Engineering). It is also a critical success factor the systems engineering transformation program. Although the overall program might have a (non-agile) structure, roadmap etc., the actual development and maintenance of Systems Engineering PMTO components should be done in an agile / DevOps way. This allows for adjustment of priorities according to product development projects as the end-customer of the PMTO components.
As a consequence, the portfolio of PMTO solutions must be managed in an agile way. This involves demand & requirements management, prioritization, budgeting, scheduling along the sprint cadence and release management.
Tool support for the business transformation
EAM does not only provide the business capability methodology. EAM tools such as from our partner LeanIX can also support the actual business transformation management. They connect the strategy & transformation layer (“Business Motivation Model” BMM) with the business and IT layers in an integrated model of the enterprise.
The NTT DATA business capability model for automotive systems engineering is modeled in LeanIX, so that customers can map their process and IT landscape to the capabilities and can start with maturity assessments, portfolio management and roadmap planning immediately.
Please contact me directly if you should be interested in our offering for business transformation management in the context of automotive systems engineering.
P.S.: this is a cross-post from my LinkedIn article
