The Systems Engineering approach has transformed engineering processes in many industrial sectors such as automotive or aerospace. It allows to deal with the increased product and usage complexity, providing ever-increasing functionalities while decreasing cost in highly competitive environments. We observe that engineering departments in most Owners and Contractors of the energy industry are still organised traditionally, by product or by trade. The increasing cost and performance pressure, allied with increased digitalisation, will require this transformation to Systems Engineering. Those that will start earlier will definitely build a strong competitive position on the market. In our new White Paper 2019-06 ‘How Systems Engineering is an Essential Transformation Force for Project-Driven Integrated Contractors in the Energy Industry’, we describe the principles of Systems Engineering, the benefits, as well as the challenges of the transformation.
Systems Engineering is a relatively new approach that has been developed to manage systems in their entirety rather than as a sum of components. It allows to address the emerging properties resulting from the interaction of those components, thus increasing predictability and reliability as well as flexibility and agility, and enabling new usages. It also enables to address extremely complex systems (systems with many components and interfaces), as the effort to manage those systems increases exponentially with complexity. When implemented fully, Systems Engineering upends the traditional engineering organisation.
The large Capex in the energy industry have been so far protected from this trend by several facts. However, Systems Engineering is essential for tier-1 Contractors. Observation of other industries shows that adopting an effective Systems Engineering is a definite competitive advantage, therefore, the early adopters can be expected to draw a substantial competitive advantage from this approach. In some industries, new entrants using this approach directly have sometimes taken substantial market share compared to well-established players. Therefore, timely migration is a competitive need.
Transforming traditional engineering organisations in the energy industry into Systems-Engineering driven organisations is inevitable. There will be substantial competitive benefit to be amongst the first to really implement the approach, delivering significant benefits and much increased agility. The transformation can also be expected to create significant changes to the market, with the emergence of wider system integrators driving the overall system architecture and functionalities on a wider scope than the current split of scope generally witnessed. The Systems Engineering transformation will be an essential revolution of the engineering approach of the energy industry. When do you start? Find more about this issue in our new White Paper 2019-06 ‘How Systems Engineering is an Essential Transformation Force for Project-Driven Integrated Contractors in the Energy Industry’.
If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: http://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2019-06_Systems_Engineering_Transition_v0.pdf
