Agenda Item The Role of Systems Engineering in Global Standardisation

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The Role of Systems Engineering in
GlobalStandardisation

• John Harauz
• Prepared for IEEE CS SAB, 28 Mar 2008
• For Computer Society Internal Use Only

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The role of systems engineering in
globalstandardisation, Jon Holt Paul
McNeillis, 2006 (British Standards Institute
downloadable Paper).

• Standards are an integral part of the work of
  engineers, but the technical and business systems
  in which standards are deployed are becoming ever
  more complex.
• In applying standards, engineers and other
  professionals face decisions which may have
  consequences far beyond their immediate context
  in time, space and scope.
• The rise of systems engineering demonstrates the
  commitment and capability of the engineering
  professional to tackle these issues.
• The paper presents a logical extension of that
  work by demonstrating how the same systems
  engineering approaches are now being applied to
  the actual development of standards.
• The benefits of using systems engineering in this
  context are set out on three levels
• application to the development of single
  standards
• to groups of inter-related standards
• entire global standards making system.

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MODELLING APPROACH

• In order to solve the problems mentioned above,
  the BSI have adopted the use of a process
  framework, or meta-model, that defines how any
  process (which encompasses standards) should be
  defined.
• A framework defines a set of views which, when
  consistent and read together, defines a complete
  model of a system. Many examples of such
  frameworks exist, such as Zachman, MODAF, etc.
• The framework adopted by the BSI comprises seven
  basic views

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MODELLING APPROACH

• Requirements view captures the requirements of
  the process and the stakeholders involved. The
  requirements view of the process framework is
  essential to the process model, as without the
  requirements, there is no means of process
  validation. In systems engineering terms, this
  view represents the output of applying classic
  requirements engineering processes.
• Information view captures the artefacts
  (deliverables) that are produced and consumed by
  the process, and also shows the relationships
  between the artefacts. This view is essential for
  traceability of the standard. One of the selling
  points of a particular type of fast-track
  standard is that the stakeholders need only work
  towards compliance with that standard since it is
  mapped back to all relevant standards.

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MODELLING APPROACH

• Stakeholder view captures the stakeholders
  involved in the process. Consideration of
  stakeholder interests and ways of involving them
  are perennial themes in standards development,
  and recent projects like the development of an
  ISO standard for Social Responsibility have
  raised the profile of this issue even further.
  The value of having a clear and transparent view
  of stakeholders and relating this back to their
  requirements has never been more important.
• Process structure view captures the structure
  and terminology of the process forms the basis
  for any kind of mapping between different
  processes and standards, which is important when
  performing audits and assessments. Clearly when
  many sources are being used for information,
  there is going to be a lot of communication
  issues and this view aims to address these.

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MODELLING APPROACH

• Process content view defines the content of a
  process in terms of the artefacts and activities
  that make up that process. The process content
  view forms the heart of the standard and may be
  thought of as the process library.
• Process behavioural view defines the behaviour
  of the process how the activities are sequenced,
  the artefacts entering and leaving the activities
  and the stakeholders involved in the process.
  This is the view that most people associate with
  process modelling and is often compared to
  flowcharts or RACI tables.
• Process instance view captures a sequence of
  processes and defines a scenario that can be used
  to validate the requirements of the process. This
  view shows how processes are executed to meet the
  original requirements.

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Benefits of Extending Systems Engineering
Techniques to the Development of Standards

• Complexity
• Clarity of structure The resulting models make
  standards simpler by revealing their core
  structure and allow us to strip out unnecessary
  complexity.
• Beyond templates Traditional standards writing
  techniques rely on the use of templates to give
  structure but there is the potential for text
  to baffle that structure and compromise it unless
  the concepts within it have been logically
  modelled and inter-related. UML modelling is a
  more rigorous tool to structure standards.
• Understanding
• Clearer requirements By adopting a requirements
  gathering and modelling approach the rationale
  behind the standard becomes explicit and
  traceable. This is invaluable in responding to
  enquiries, looking back at the logic after the
  original project has completed, and in making
  changes and updates as requirements change.
• Congruence a well engineered standard is
  congruent in its scope, processes and aims.
  Systems engineering gives the ability to test,
  understand and validate that congruence and to
  correct it if it proves faulty.

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Benefits of Extending Systems Engineering
Techniques to the Development of Standards

• Communication
• Visual communication can be more immediate than
  text and give the reader of a draft standard the
  ability to access a systems perspective on the
  standard at a glance. Models invite interaction
  and discussions in group situations. They can
  draw large groups of stakeholders into a
  productive development process that goes well
  beyond the usual committee facilitation. There is
  growing recognition of the need for high
  transparency in standards development projects
  and this approach offers a powerful new tool for
  communicating in traceable fashion precisely how
  stakeholder requirements are informing the
  development process.
• The core deliverable of BSI Professional Services
  is the development of the fast track standard
  known as the Publicly Available Specification or
  PAS. This is, in effect, an industry standard,
  with stakeholder consultation, that can be
  generated in a relatively-short time period
  (around eight months) and that could potentially
  then form the basis for a full consensus British
  Standard. This entire systems modelling approach
  has been systematically adopted as the best
  practice methodology for developing PASs and has
  been applied across all sectors including
  software systems, new technologies like
  nanotechnology and regenerative medicine, and
  established sectors like food and retail.

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Benefits at Group Level

• Applying the approach at the group level brings
  all the established benefits of application at
  the single standard level but starts to bring in
  other benefits realised when a standard is
  developed as an integral part of a larger system.
  These benefits can be summarised once again
  against each of the three major development
  issues
• Complexity the complexity of a group of
  standards can be grasped, analysed and reduced by
  the systematic application of systems engineering
  techniques like UML modelling.

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Benefits at Group Level

• Understanding The process of modelling a group
  of standards engages stakeholders in an
  examination of a standard as part of a wider
  system. The final result is not an isolated new
  item, that simply adds to the confusing quagmire
  of standards, but an integrated piece of the
  puzzle defined as much by its relationships to
  other standards as by the content itself.
• Communication As with single standards
  projects, communications between members of the
  group are enhanced by this approach, but
  importantly the communication starts to spread to
  others outside of the immediate project in order
  to relate to standards and systems that are
  physically remote. This lays the foundations for
  significant interaction within the global
  standards making system.

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Key Concept of Importance to CS

• Mapping.
• One of the selling points of the PAS is to enable
  the end users of the standard to have a single
  source of reference that will comply with all
  relevant standards.
• The key to this is to be able to map from the PAS
  back to the source standards. These mappings can
  be rather complex and are hidden in the appendix
  of the PAS.
• They are hidden for several reasons so that the
  end users will not get bogged down the detailed
  mapping because standards do change and evolve
  and so that when a new source standard appears or
  an existing one is changed then the main body of
  the PAS will remain robust and only the mappings
  will change.
• In reality, like any other standard, the PAS will
  evolve over time and it is important that the PAS
  model can reflect this, but by keeping the
  mappings separate from the main body, the core
  standard will be as robust as possible.

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Standards Quagmire

• In the world of systems engineering, this problem
  of fragmentation is immediately apparent.
  Consider, for example, the plethora of systems
  engineering standards, such as ISO 15288, ISO
  15504, CMMI, EIA 632,EIA 742, IEEE 1220, Mil Std
  499, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 15000, INCOSE big
  book of knowledge, etc. Also, bear in mind that
  these standards are all international ones, and
  there are many, many more industry- and
  application-specific standards that relate to
  systems engineering.
• By the very nature of complexity, there are many
  questions that arise from such a view. Some
  standards are derived from others, for example
  both IEEE 1220 and EIA 632 are derived form Mil
  Std 499. Some organisations favour particular
  standards, for example, the MoD in the UK have
  mandated the use of ISO 15288 on all project and
  also the use of MODAF how do these two relate
  together? How much time and effort should be put
  into standards compliance? Does the whole
  standard need to be met or just part of it?.

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Standards Quagmire

• Delays to market. Sometimes a disagreement or
  indecision concerning the release of a standard
  can impact the time to market a product. Take, as
  an example, the Sony PS3 which has been delayed
  for over 9 months. One of the main reasons for
  this is the lack of agreement over the Blue Ray
  standard that will be at the heart of the system.
  If Sony were to release the system and then not
  comply with the standard, then it would cost more
  money to recall, update and re-release than not
  to release.
• Competition between standards. History is
  littered by examples of competing standards.
  Those people of a certain age will remember the
  classic VHS/Beta Max wars of the early 1980s.
  Consider also the format of writable DVDs (DVD-R,
  DVD-RW, DVD ) and so on.

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A Complex Adaptive System

• These kind of systems have increasingly been
  viewed through the metaphor of a global
  ecosystem.
• This is seen as a very appropriate lens through
  which to see a complex, social system and by
  which to introduce a link to the existing body of
  work on complex adaptive systems CAS.
• The theory of CASs describes the behaviour of
  simple biological systems in the natural world.
  With such complexity the system is far beyond the
  reach of any single project or single
  infrastructure to manage and control it in a
  moment in time.
• The aim then must be to influence the system and
  introduce structural elements that encourage the
  emergence of patterns and trends that will be
  beneficial and useful to its stakeholders.
• Before looking at how this works in detail the
  general pattern for the complexity evolution of
  standards is presented as three phases below
  Initial Emergence Divergence and then
  Convergence.

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A Complex Adaptive System - Emergence

• Some of the problems that beset the standards
  making system are associated with the
  fragmentation of standards making efforts.
• When a new field which may benefit from
  standardisation, for example risk management,
  comes to light many diverse standards making
  efforts spring up.
• These efforts may represent the efforts of
  specific stakeholders to address their local
  issues from their perspectives and to offer
  practical tools for response.
• This initial round of emergent standards is
  highly valuable to get the issue or product in
  focus and to provide tools to use in a timely and
  appropriate fashion.

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A Complex Adaptive System - Divergence

• Often after emergence, there occurs a second
  phase of divergence and proliferation where
  different standards abound and increase in
  number.
• This takes place without clear consideration of
  the relationship of the new standards to either
  stakeholder requirements or to existing standards
  frameworks.
• Different standards may address the same issue
  but in different ways.
• So standards may overlap, duplicate and possibly
  conflict. They may represent certain interests
  above others.
• They may use different language to describe
  essentially the same things.
• The legitimate interests and emphases underlying
  the original drive for standards, start to get
  tangled in an ever more complex web.
• The impact on end-users then starts to become
  apparent.

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A Complex Adaptive System - Divergence

• Without any means of comparing standards
  end-users may make ill-informed choices.
• They may risk following a standard which
  subsequently becomes obsolete for example in
  technology product standards there are many well
  known examples of standards wars where the losers
  and their adopters pay a heavy price.
• They may start to face demand for compliance to
  multiple standards and see their costs increase.
  This goes against the original aims of such
  standards to empower those poorest stakeholders
  at the beginning of the supply chain by giving
  them a mechanism to demonstrate value associated
  with their products.
• End users may uncover incompatible features of
  diverse standards as they struggle to achieve
  integration into a single coherent system for
  their organizations during practical
  implementation.

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A Complex Adaptive System - Convergence

• When the peak of complexity and proliferation is
  reached demand for convergence increases.
  End-users and other stakeholders start to talk
  about integration and standards makers about
  harmonisation. But how are these goals to be
  achieved?
• The widespread adoption of systems engineering
  methods in the global standards making system.
  The key dynamic that systems engineering can
  influence can be thought of as self-organisation.
  Simple systems that self-organise show several
  characteristics
• High surface structure
• High energy and frequent interaction in the
  system
• Macro-structures influenced by micro-level
  structures

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A Complex Adaptive System - Convergence

• A systems approach can contribute to each of
  these characteristics
• High surface structure can be developed through
  adopting a systematic set of structural features
  in standards such as UML modelling.
• High energy and frequent interaction can be
  developed by adopting state of the art knowledge
  management approaches that search out existing
  and related standards and actively make
  comparisons.
• Macro-structures influenced by micro-level
  structures repeat cycles of interaction allow
  inter-related standards to develop, harmonise and
  transform into suites of standards that show
  convergence and consistency.

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Conclusions

• Systems engineering has value and application
  well beyond the bounds of traditional
  engineering. The complex human system of
  standards development is a great example of this.
  
• Single standards can be developed using a robust
  design discipline that until now has been
  lacking.
• Groups of standards can be inter-related and
  developed in an integrated way to create coherent
  standards systems with benefits for global
  organizations and whole industries.
• Finally the whole global standards development
  system can benefit from the adoption of these
  techniques to change the current dynamics of
  fragmentation and encourage positive outcomes
  like harmonisation, inter-operability and
  integration.
• This promises a pivotal role for systems
  engineering in the evolution of the whole complex
  standards ecosystem.