Systems Engineering is the application of thinking to design the ‘whole’ rather than the ‘parts’, addressing the problem holistically and with an inter-disciplinary view. As well as design, this approach can be applied to safety management and can also encompass ‘whole life’ considerations such as maintenance, sustainability, decommissioning and recycling.

A natural extension of the holistic nature of systems engineering, Systems Integration focuses on delivering increased value through optimisation of disparate components and systems. This is achieved through successful inter-connection and inter-operation between discrete parts of the system and with external systems and the wider environment. The successful result provides the best customer experience whilst also delivering improvements to the client company.

Systems Assurance and Systems Assurance Strategy is the end-to-end process of ensuring the product fulfils the initial brief, and is functionally and intrinsically safe. It is the delivery of confidence to the client and to all users of the system, enabling a final design, product or system to be unleashed on an unsuspecting or (hopefully!) suspecting world. Such processes can, again, be complex and often bureaucratic – however, with clear communication and focus, we have shown that this is a powerful and efficient project delivery tool.

Technical Project Management and Project Delivery are often considered as separate disciplines (and often without the ‘Technical’ bit) but we prefer them as one inextricably linked activity. Technically-knowledgable Project Management can be the difference between successful or otherwise Project Delivery. Additionally, experience of the efficiencies of Systems Engineering, Integration and Assurance can deliver additional project benefits.