President's Message

This year’s election for INCOSE officers is closed but the chapter’s election will soon be open.  We will have two members that will be on the ballot for first time.  Write-in candidates are also welcome.  They will be joining the other members of our Board of Directors to provide a program which promotes systems engineering here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The monthly chapter meetings are just one way to provide value to our members.  We have discussed conducting workshops on a variety of topics but we need your input on what is of interest.  We are also collaborating with Los Angeles Chapter on a mini-regional conference to be held next year.  This will not only provide a learning opportunity to members who may not be able to make the International Symposium but also an opportunity to share your expertise by publishing and presenting your own paper (see the notice about the Regional Mini-Conference 2016 for more information).  We are also discussing plans for a social event and are looking for members who would volunteer to help organize.

Last month’s chapter meeting “Leveraging Space Resources as a Humanitarian Tool” presented by Allan Sison was well attended at San Jose State University, at the Lockheed Martin satellite location and remotely through GlobalMeet.  We are trying to provide a variety of forums for members to engage.  There were also several San Jose State University students in attendance.

These are just a few of the ways that the chapter works to provide value to members.  There are also the INCOSE central efforts.  

I have attended a couple of the webinars which provide information of current practices in systems engineering.  I found the webinar by candidate for President, Rick Dove, on “The Art of Agile SE” to be quite engaging.  It confirmed an aspect of systems engineering that Ihave always believed to be a central element which is user engagement.  I consider the user to be not only the end user of a system but also the engineering, manufacturing, and service organizations involved in realizing the system.  

Rick pointed out three design quality principles:  Harmony of delight (emotional); parsimony (economic); and requisite variety (functional).  My experience had been that these are: cost; schedule; and function.  While I realized that there was another element at play (for example resistance to change or preference for particular design), I had not identified it until this webinar as the emotional quality.

Another point that Rick made is the expectation of consistency.  Systems need to be evolutionary not revolutionary.  I have some difficulty accepting this.  In my experience with defense and medical devices, this is the case.  But Steve Jobs was quite successful in his vision as a revolutionary that cannot ask what a user wants then develop the product, because by time it goes to market, the user’s wants will have changed. 

Besides offering members information on current practices in Systems Engineering, these webinars also provide members who are certified the opportunity to earn PDUs to maintain certification.

INCOSE provides numerous opportunities for members to exchange knowledge and systems engineering information.  The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter is at the foreground for our members to offer quality professional development.  The chapter endeavors to engage all members and asks for your response to the upcoming election, attending chapter meetings, answering the requests for input on topics of interest and volunteering to support.

By Rollie Olson 
INCOSE SFBAC President

President's Message

This is the time of year where INCOSE recognizes its members.  As you recall in the last newsletter, our chapter earned the Silver Circle Award for 2015 for the seventh year in a row.  This award recognizes the chapter’s performance in areas which promote systems engineering and the value to members for being a part of the INCOSE organization.

It was my honor to accept the award on behalf of the chapter at the International Symposium which was a recognition of leadership and member contributions to the technical and social programs afforded to members.

Congratulations to Dave Mason upon receiving the INCOSE 2015 Outstanding Service Award.  He and other distinguished INCOSE members were recognized for their volunteer effort to the organization at the International Symposium celebrating INCOSE’s 25th anniversary.

This award recognized Dave’s contributions to the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter and the INCOSE Student Division, as well as his contributions to the discipline of systems engineering.

The June meeting featured a presentation by Laurie Buss on Group Flow: The Genesis of Innovation.  This is an element of the Transformation Caucus.  Ms. Buss presented how a variety of critical thinking skills are needed in a group environment to promote program success.  It was an interactive presentation to provide opportunity to practice some of the skills.  It stimulated some follow-up by one of our members on the impact of deadlines on flow and creativity.  Stay tuned for the paper to be submitted with several others for this fall’s Insight publication.

We are continuing to investigate the potential of offering a workshop on Mastering Agile Requirements, by Agile Learning Labs.  The timeframe had to be moved to this fall as they filled up on requests.  In order to put this on, we do need to have a minimum of 15 participants.  The tentative cost will be $400 to $500 for a one day workshop.  If you are interested, please respond to rollie.olson@incose.org in order for us to proceed with planning.

We are also discussing a workshop on Transformational Systems Engineering by Dr. Scott Workinger. If there are any other topics of interest, please let us know.

In cooperation with the Los Angeles, San Diego, Central and Southern Arizona Chapters, we are working on a mini regional conference to be held 8-9 April 2016 at Loyola Marymount University.  This will provide INCOSE members with low cost learning and networking opportunity who might not be able to attend International Symposium.

The theme planned for the conference is Systems Engineering – One Discipline Providing Global Value:  Fundamentals, Applications, and Innovation.  This conference will consider that systems engineering is a global discipline, and that its concepts and fundamentals can be adapted for many different applications to solve worldwide concerns and create value.

We are looking for volunteers to support the planning and organizing for the conference and the call for papers will be going out shortly.  This is an excellent opportunity for members to get published, share their knowledge with systems engineers, and be recognized.  Please contact rollie.olson@incose.org if you are interested in volunteering for any role.

By Rollie Olson 
INCOSE SFBAC President

President's Message

The Los Angeles Chapter contacted us last year about the possibility of working with them on a regional conference.  There was more discussion at the International Workshop in January at which we learned something about what is involved in planning and organizing such an event.  At the board of directors meeting there was some uncertainty whether the chapter can muster the membership to support the endeavor but it was viewed as an excellent learning opportunity.

The Los Angeles Chapter has experience putting together conferences and is leading the initial planning.  Currently, the San Diego, Central and Southern Arizona Chapters are also engaging in supporting this regional conference.  Bill Sanders, Dave Mason and I are representing our chapter.  We are learning about the logistics involved in putting on a conference:  finding keynote speaker(s), finding a venue, advertising the event, setting up registration, defining technical program, call for papers and review/selection.  The latter is most important to ensure that participants find the investment of time and money to attend is rewarding.

The original plan was to try and have the conference in the fall of this year.  But that did not afford sufficient time to organize the technical program.  The team has agreed that we should delay it until spring of next year.  This will provide the time to gather and review potential papers in order to promote a quality event.

The objective of the regional conference is to offer local INCOSE members who may not have the resources to attend the International Symposium in July the opportunity to discuss and learn about innovative applications of systems engineering to new domains and challenges and network with other professionals.

The theme planned for the conference is Systems Engineering – One Discipline Providing Global Value:  Fundamentals, Applications, and Innovation.  This conference will consider that systems engineering is a global discipline, and that its concepts and fundamentals can be adapted for many different applications to solve worldwide concerns and create value.

The details of what technical tracks will be offered are still being defined.  The proposed tracks that are being considered are:

• Value of SE in Bio, Trans, etc.

• Agile

• Entertainment SE

• MBSE

• SE Processes / Tools

• Biomedical

• Cybersecurity / Data Analytics

• Autonomous Systems and Vehicles 

You are invited to submit a paper for consideration on any of these topics or other topics that are germane.  There is an opportunity to present the papers planned for the Transformation Caucus series to be submitted this fall to Insight.  This is an excellent opportunity for members to get published, share their knowledge with systems engineers, and be recognized.  If interested, please prepare an extended abstract, a page or two, that describes your work in enough detail for a good review.   Authoring guidelines will be provided later.  Please submit your abstract to rollieolsonjr@gmail.com.

By Rollie Olson

INCOSE SFBAC President

President's Message

INCOSE is celebrating its Silver Anniversary but until I engaged in evaluating our chapter’s accomplishments for chapter awards, I was not aware that the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter was chartered in June 1995.  I became a member later that year and my participation in the chapter has varied greatly over the past 20 years for a variety of reasons:  work/volunteer/life balance; doubt in value; conflicting schedules; etc.  A few years ago, I became more engaged when I found myself in transition and my personal objective was to show potential employers that I was maintaining my skills.  I acknowledge that my current position is a result of connections within the chapter.  My current objective is to give back to the chapter, to reinvigorate chapter operations, and to promote the practice of systems engineering.

A measure that the Board of Directors was striving to improve is engagement of members.  In retrospect, for 2014 there was a consistent level of attendance at monthly chapter meetings.  This despite the challenge faced with our change in venue from Carnegie Mellon University where an increase in classes restricted availability and our move to HackerDojo.  We continue to work on improving the experience for participation at HackerDojo, for remote participation, and to solicit feedback from members on their personal experiences.  We are considering the possibility of moving which day of the second week of the month on which to have the chapter meeting and are soliciting member feedback.  

I want to recognize the efforts of Amanda Foo who as Program Coordinator for much of the year found topics and speakers which enticed members to join the monthly meeting.  An area that we want to improve is identifying topics and speakers several months in advance so that active members and potential members can prioritize their schedules and utilizing the new INCOSE website to publish these events.

I am encouraged that 2015 is poised to achieve higher expectations.  Our first monthly meeting was presented by Bradley Banks on “Engineering the California High Speed Railway". This month’s presentation is by Robin Reil, our secretary, on “Model Based Systems Engineering and Requirements Traceability”.  The Transformation Caucus is preparing several papers for publication in the autumn issue of INCOSE Insight.

The Board of Directors wants to address the feedback from the survey conducted during the elections to provide workshops on topics of interest to you.  We will be forming committees to support planning and execution of these workshops and solicit anyone who is interested in volunteering to help.  

The INCOSE International Workshop and Symposium are training opportunities for directors to develop skills and gain knowledge to be more effective leaders.  The Board of Directors approved supporting the directors’ attendance to these events.

There are several opportunities for members to share your knowledge and network with your peers.  I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities at the monthly chapter meetings and to share your comments through the newsletter blog.

By Rollie Olson

INCOSE SFBAC President 

Rollie Olson's Bio

President's Message: FDA Applying Systems of Systems Approach to Deal with Cybersecurity for Medical Devices and Healthcare

I recently attended a webcast hosted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to address cybersecurity for medical devices and healthcare.  It was a call to action to engage medical device manufacturers, healthcare organizations, the FDA and other government agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to address the advanced and persistent cyber threats to systems.  Cybersecurity is fundamentally a people problem which is enabled by technology, people are responsible for initiating attacks and the internet of everything is exploited to facilitate these attacks.

The FDA regulates medical devices but there are over 100,000 medical devices, so there is expectation that manufacturers are assessing risk and taking control measures.  The FDA does not regulate the healthcare providers which represents a vast spectrum from national institutions like the Veteran's Administration Hospital to individual doctors.  This is one of the pain points identified for systems of systems, no central authority.  The FDA strategy is to foster collaboration in order to address the vulnerability posed by cybersecurity. This affects medical devices as well as healthcare providers and any breach to these systems could lead to an attack on other systems which is why DHS is engaged.

The systems of systems’ need for inter-operability drives requirements for inter-connectivity which exposes cybersecurity vulnerabilities.  Inter-operability improves efficiency to provide healthcare which improves patient care but also boils down to economics.  This is a tradeoff between information access and security.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defined a framework for improving cybersecurity.  A core element of the framework is the identification of the risk.  The risk assessment considers the interfaces of the constituent systems in the risk environment.  This is challenging because as previously stated healthcare providers represent a vast spectrum which inter-connect systems in variety of ways.  Also, some medical devices are classified as legacy devices because they have a long service life and may lack security features. When these legacy devices are interfaced with other systems they present a vulnerability to the systems of systems.  Another core element of the framework is detection of an attack.  Detection is always after the fact so focus is on remediation.  The reporting of attack is an interface that needs to develop in order to share the information and reduce the risk to other systems.  A common model to bridge organizational barriers, sectors and address concerns about reputation, liability and intellectual property needs to be defined.

An element of the discussion that I found particularly interesting is the human aspect.  While there is the obvious human aspect of the hackers who initiate the attack, the healthcare providers are hackers in their own right.  The healthcare providers' priority is to patient care and they are resilient at devising workarounds to use the systems at their disposal.  Additionally, availability of systems to provide care trumps security, so even if vulnerability is detected but the system can continue to satisfy its intended use, it will be used.

Throughout the two day webcast attended by a large diverse community the theme of systems of systems was repeated.  Cybersecurity is a multi-faceted wicked problem covering economics, technology, human factors, political, physics and math.  Numerous constituent systems are involved.  It requires systems thinking.  The FDA is facilitating a collaborative environment to provide leadership in solving these issues.  The mission of the FDA is to ensure that medical devices are safe and effective and to ensure security going forward.

By Rollie Olson

INCOSE SFBAC President 

Rollie Olson's Bio