Persides has the expertise to lead or contribute to any of the major systems engineering building blocks and has for some of its customers provided a turn-key approach, encompassing all aspects of systems engineering, applied to a major subsystem.
In relation to the fundamental elements of the ANSI/EIA-632 systems engineering model Persides has the ability to make a major contribution to the following:
- Acquisition & Supply - the definition and refinement of user needs. In this activity Persides can apply its broad military domain expertise and up-to date knowledge of technology advances to work with users and other stakeholders to define and document User/System Requirements documents or database and Statements Of Work. Having scoped the overall requirement Persides can apply its knowledge of the defence market to identify and compete those companies with the best capability and cost offering.
- Technical Management - management of the technical or engineering programme is a core capability of Persides and uses many of the same principles described in our Project Management capability pages With a focus on the engineering tasks Persides has the skills to prepare and execute tasks in line with a Systems Engineering Management Plan and for software-intensive projects a Software Development Plan. A key aspect of technical management is the conduct of Technical Reviews throughout the development lifecycle and the determination and continuous measurement of Technical Performance Measures; both aspects of which Persides has demonstrable experience in.
- System Design - the iteration of defining and allocating requirements and producing potential system architectures for capability/cost trade-off analysis. Persides has experience with many of the techniques used within this activity, in particular, functional analysis, thread analysis, data/control flow analysis, state transition diagrams and object-oriented methods. For managing requirements allocation and flow-down Persides has utilised the DOORS toolset and for simpler systems Excel spreadsheets.
- Product Realisation - the translation of the system architecture to a physical electronic/software/mechanical product. Persides has in-house skills in the design and development of electronic circuits, software architectures, coding in the languages of C and C++ and DSP/FPGA development. For mechanical design, PCB manufacture/assembly and high-volume final assembly Persides has a number of preferred partners which can be applied to provide a total end-to-end product solution. More detail on our technology development capabilities can be found here
- Technical Evaluation - the conduct of trade-offs, modelling/simulation and the verification and validation processes. Persides has prepared numerous trade-off analyses which compare key evaluation parameters such as capability, cost, timescales and risk in order to generate a series of options for selection by customers and users. Typically these include such options as do nothing, do minimum, most effective and most cost effective - with potential excursions around all these points. In terms of validation and verification Persides has led and augmented various prime contractor’s V&V activities and has supplied the Vela™ software tool to automate the collection and analysis of field trials data; more information on our V&V capabilities can be found here
Persides is a member of INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering) and has a detailed understanding of the leading industry standards in systems engineering including:
- INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook
- ANSI/EIA-632, Processes for Engineering a
- IEEE 1220 Application & Management of the Systems Engineering Process
- MIL-STD-499B Systems Engineering
Examples of our systems engineering experience include the following:
- FIST - Future Integrated Soldier Technology for the UK MoD. Persides as a Tier 1 partner to Thales has performed a number of systems engineering roles including: C4I subsystem lead, power options trade-off analysis, load carriage subsystem lead and provision of VelaTM trials analysis software.
- CHIM(P) - is a hardware and software development programme to deliver the next generation multipurpose high grade crypto device to the UK MoD. Persides role for Harris Systems is the UK technical and programme lead on a highly complex developmental project working with several international suppliers.
- NEC4CC - NEC For Close Combat for Roke Manor Research. Persides role in NEC4CC includes the analysis of remote sensor technology options in support of the dismounted soldier.