SSE Meeting 11

INCOSE UK Service Systems Engineering Meeting 3 November 2014

Held at QinetiQ, London.

Attendees

Steve Ashlin, Iain Cardlow (by phone), Andrew Farncombe, John Davies, Alan Crawford

Issues with Changes to Services

A wide ranging discussion came up with the following:

• Traditionally in Product-based systems, changes have been in two classes -
  • Class 1: Requirements Change when the customer wants the system to do something different, or more general a change to the 'problem'.
  • Class 2: When the suppler wants a change because of changes to the technology, or more generally the solution.
• With Services it may be necessary to handle continuous change, but also there can be 'disruptive change' where step changes are made.
• A Service contract is more likely to enable changes at delivery, for example, maintenance and re-fitting of ships depends on when they are available. With a Product contract, the dates were set in the contract, with a Service contract the work gets done when it can.
• Changes can be related to Stakeholders : The Consumer, the Suppler and Legislation
• Changes to services can have incentives for both the Customer and the Supplier. If a supplier is providing a service then for any improvement, the supplier is part of the change. For a Product delivery the customer can decide the change and the supplier delivers it, but is not really part of the change.
• Environmental changes can be different for Services and Products. Where 'evironment' are things outside the specific service contract. These could be changes in technology, competitor offerings, legislation.

Phil John has remarked in the past that different types of changes have different time-scales:

• Technology changes quickly so an optimum solution for a service may change quickly
• Customer needs tend to change at a slower rate.
• Some procurement systems are lethargic and very slow.

Service Lifecycle Issues

The following Lifecycle for Services was used as a basis for discussion:

• Setting up the Service
  • Understanding/Designing the business model
  • Designing the Service
  • Integrating the Service

• Framework for day-to-day operations
  • Running the service
  • Modifications and changes
  • Handling Obsolescence
  • Changes made day-to-day

The Customer business process process supported by the system or service is traditionally determined by the customer, but with Services, the process may be better designed by the supplier:

• For Product-based systems - the Customer decides the process
• For Service-based systems - the Supplier decides the process.

Review of applicability of the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook to Services

Version 3.2 has been reviewed for its content with respect to Service Systems Engineering. The term 'Service Systems Engineering' does not appear within the document, and there are no sections specifically dealing with Services. However the term 'products and services' appears in many places in particular as the outputs of the Systems Engineering process.

Version 4 is in preparation and planned to be released in May 2015. It is understood that the main changes are to provide better alignment with ISO/IEC 15288.

Work Plan

The current state of work against the plan was reviewed. Steve A has updated the plan and supporting set of slides to cover the work being progressed.

Development of Use Cases

Management of Test Ranges

This has been moved to the agreed template with the MoD Lines of Development (TEPIDOIL) used to describe the Enterprise. ,QinetiQ Test and Evaluation Ranges

Electric Car Rental

This is a Cambridge Services Alliance Case Study of an Electrical Car Rental Scheme in Japan. ,Electric Vehicle Rental Although the rental business was well understood and the products worked correctly, the scheme was not a financial success due to an over-optimistic business plan and a lack of co-operation between stakeholders.

Provision of Services for Film Post Production

ZOO Digital provide post production services for the film, TV, games and other Media Industries. The services are provided on Amazon Cloud via the Internet. ,ZOO Digital

UK Government 'Digital Market Place'

Thw UK Government are enabling departments to rent IT from service providers via the Digital Market Place' The services are accessible via the Government Cloud (G-Cloud). COntracts are direct between the Government Department and the provider and can go up to £100M and two years duration. ,Digital Market Place

ASEC14 Poster

Steve A and Andrew F are going to the conference and will field questions about the Working Group.

All Working Groups are producing a Poster to a fixed format. Steve A, Andrew F and John D will produce the Poster by 7 November, based on existing work.

Work of core group members

For the next meeting following will be looked at/developed:

• Steve A: Use Case for specific trials
• Peter M: Procurement use case
• Rachel F: Energy efficiency Use Case
• Iain C: Engine provision Use Case
• John D: Electric Car Rental Use Case
• Andrew F: Review INCOSE Handbook - distribute notes
• Alan C: Review existing material

Date for next meeting:

23 January 2015 – Rolls-Royce, Filton, Bristol