System Engineering Education for Confirmed Engineers: The FAIS case Study- A 6 years Feedback

Abstract

System engineering education is major challenge with regard to the current structure and organization of the higher education system oriented towards specialization. Although several programs have emerged in the recent years in France in universities and school of engineers the field remains broadly unknown. The number of young graduates with system engineering education remains low. At the same time, system engineering is increasingly used in industry now beyond the usual defense and aeronautical applications. As a result continuous education and training needs for confirmed engineers have surged in the recent years. In this paper we describe a feedback on the FAIS program for confirmed engineers with an analysis of the various parameters which have clearly contributed to its success. Several trends have emerged as a result of this program. System engineering is in need of theoretical foundations and this is increasingly expressed by system engineering participants. Requirements engineering and architecture were initially major themes of the training with the use of associated softwares (DOORS, IBM System Architect, MEGA). Significant experience have been achieved in coaching trainees in understanding and mastering both the concepts and practice on significant case studies. However, the trend have increasingly be in expectations from trainees for architecture evaluation and mastering architecture complexity. The FAIS program have strongly evolved during the past 6 years and have better adapted to the growing needs of attendees. A turning point have been the adoption of coaching and supervision of attendees on their own case studies. Departing from a common academic style case study to the current projects of DGA attendees have both enriched the training and increased the involvement of attendees in their training. A trusted environment of learning and exchange have also allowed deepening of the system engineering issues raised by the case studies. This have been allowed by the common work origin of the participants. MBSE, architecture modelling and evaluation have increasingly dominated the training and the trend is confirmed in 2016. Continuous improvements have been brought with growing training hours for some topics and diminishing training hours for others. FAIS have operated as a sliding window on education topics. Multidisciplinary system simulation, mathematical modelling and optimization coupled with simulation are the emerging trends of the program.