Lessons learnt in system engineering for the SESAR programme

Abstract

The SESAR 1 programme, which aims at improving Air Traffic Management in Europe, is entering into its seventh and last year of life. After two years, it reached a cruise regime, with simplified System Engineering and Management processes, to deliver each year a set of “SESAR Solutions”, ready for industrialisation. Along with the management of the ongoing Program, the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) prepared a following programme SESAR 2020, to continue the development and validation of next improvements organized to benefit from the lessons learnt during SESAR 1: • Coarser granularity, • Better and more integrated “strategic information” management, • More systematic management of System Engineering data, including Requirements, Validation Objectives, Validation results and Architecture models, • Strict monitoring of maturity progress of each SESAR Solution with predefined maturity criteria, • Focusing on annual Releases of mature Solutions. These lessons learnt can be applied to any System of Systems Research and Development programme, where coordinated System Engineering is a key issue.