Archive for EngD
- Potential scale for EngD stakeholders
- Understanding the need for fundamental knowledge
- AEngD goes live
- Rise of the Ingineer
- First year review
- Innovative materials developed for construction industry
- 2011 IPICS Summer School
- Introduction to the EngD in Systems
- EngD Blogs
- May Activity
Potential scale for EngD stakeholders
To avoid the awkward silence and following discussion about a (potential) stakeholder’s relationship to the research project, I’ve been thinking about a nice, quick and easy scale to base value decisions against. A stakeholder will have interest and influence either in the field of research, scope of the problem or in relation to you and the project. I’ve started to sketch out my ideas for the scale but am interested in people’s opinion.
The is no point listing every actor within a system who isn’t a stakeholder, so even assigning someone a value of nought, is not a negative reflection of them or their contribution as the scale is relative. Time was easy to quantify across a ten point scale, as was the type of relationship, but translating these indicators into guidelines and benchmark statements for INTEREST and INFLUENCE is tricky.
The amount of influence EngD academic/industrial supervisors have or exert is subjective and depends on too many variables. You will want to foster/create relationships with all stakeholders and aimed to engage them with your research and objectives.
Your thoughts?
0 Comments 
Filed under Understanding the need for fundamental knowledge
Figure 1. University of Bristol, Systems Centre systems approach
It is widely recognised in industry that a systems approach is pivotal to the development of successful companies. A Systems approach can provide a vital competitive edge in developing new products and services and in creating flexible, responsive and efficient organisations.
Systems thinking can be applied to any organisation or any project, regardless of size and companies in almost any sector can benefit from adopting a Systems approach to their operation.
Using Systems methods, underpinned by research expertise allows organisations to maximise the value of people, technology, functions and performance. Companies can benefit from adopting a Systems approach to all aspects of their operation.
New techniques in Systems Engineering, and the ability to integrate the hard and soft aspects of Systems, are providing exciting opportunities for innovation.
The Systems Centre currently collaborates on more than 50 projects with more than 30 companies, teaching and developing approaches that address the requirement for enhanced performance of Systems.
The approach used by the Systems Centre (Figure 1) extends the USA National Science Foundation Systems model by being stakeholder led, and is consistent with that published in the Royal Academy of Engineering’s “Creating Systems that work: Principles of engineering Systems for the 21st century” (243kb, PDF).
This approach seeks to identify the stakeholder requirements and the system solutions that will meet the requirements. The system solution may require a number of enabling technologies that must be integrated to provide the solution, and each technology must be understood and fundamental knowledge acquired.
Personal reflections on the approach
On first glance the approach can be easy to pass of as common sense;
- Stakeholder requirements – Find out what the problem is and what they want.
- Systems Solution – Come up with the fix
- Enabling Technologies – List what you’re going to use
- Fundamental Knowledge – Make sure you know how to put it together!
I recently revised the approach (Figure 1) as I believe the environmental constants and constraints should be highlighted, while the perspectives of stakeholders are listed along side requirements (and other factors). I will post a critic of the model in another post, but I wanted to talk about the core level of fundamental knowledge.
The EngD is promoted as a more practical doctoral research programme over the PhD due to the involvement of industry. While the contributions of PhD programmes have been welcomed, business has required investment to commercialise research findings. The EngD is suppose to help bridge this gap between academia and business.
When I consider the majority of engineering PhD research programmes I have been in contact with, they are mainly focused at the enabling technologies or system solution level. A gap in the literature has been identified or someone has a novel concept that then forms the basis of the research. The outcome of the research can be planned to ensure headlines, public interest and future funding. Every time I read any article with ‘Brain controlled …..‘ or ‘.. just by their mind/thoughts..’ or other attention seeking headline I groan inside. This need to capture the public or business interest in the research, I feel, focuses the output of research to be a prototype of new technology or process. The academic might want to showcase their CV in the hope of consultancy work. Current engineering PhD research mainly occurs between the enabling technologies or system solution level.
I am talking about PhD research within engineering, so why would I find this surprising? The problem I see is that academia is not focusing on the fundamental knowledge behind technology or systems. If a system is an assembly of nodes, and each node is a technology component, we are missing the fundamental knowledge that is the glue to keep it together and the knowledge of what should be placed where AND WHY!.
With my own research, I suddenly realised that for last few months I had been discussing how best to utilise enabling technology to improve the system solution and how the overall improvement would be measured, when it slowly dawned on me that those little concerns in the background about not being able to truly measure ‘better’ or quantify why we should use one technology over another, those little concerns might need to be addressed. My research has now changed significantly to try and address these challenges due to a lack of fundamental knowledge and understanding in the field.
Using the 5WH for each level;
- Stakeholder requirements - The Who.
- Systems Solution - The Where and How
- Enabling Technologies - The What and When
- Fundamental Knowledge - The WHY!
AEngD goes live
The new-look AEngD website went live over the weekend, and I’m happy to say I helped in some small way to make sure the logo was the more professional option and brightly coloured (orange! :p)
The new site incorporates more interactive features than the first website, and also offers additional places for IDCs to publish content, including details of EngD vacancies, news, events, etc. For the IDC listing pages, many of the IDCs who have joined the AEngD have already provided details about their centre, including IDC logos, a list of sponsors and relevant photographs.
The Association of Engineering Doctorates is a community engaged in research in engineering and related disciplines. It encourages high calibre research engineers (REs) to undertake EngD programmes at Industrial Doctorate Centres (IDCs), funded by EPSRC with backing from UK industry sponsors, many of them companies at the leading edge of innovative thinking and practice.
It would also be helpful if you could announce the new AEngD site via your own websites, etc, and encourage EngD Research Engineers, EngD alumni and IDC staff wish to become members.
Rise of the Ingineer
By the very nature of their jobs, engineers are highly-skilled and technically-minded people. Engineers are innately creative problem solvers that utalise their knowledge and skill to create almost everything we use today. Ask people what they think of engineers and engineering (and I often do), and the response will usually be along the lines of applying mathematics to some design before getting dirty and building something. There are many aspects of engineering that put people off the subject and often the hard technical aspect overshadows the soft creative side.
The engineer can fall into the role of a technical expert and their work is misunderstood. One reason engineers aren’t considered creative is that they often don’t start with the proverbial blank sheet of paper each time they do something. Rather, they bring together and build on existing technology and try to improve incrementally on its performance. An engineer’s core mission is to try to improve the utility of things, to design products or processes that will solve problems better, faster, and cheaper.
While engineering can be technically demanding and required a working knowledge of maths, I feel I flex my creative engineer muscles regularly. Working with hard and soft systems provides the ideal technical creative environment to express innovative solutions to multilayer problems. In a recent discussion the term ‘Ingineer’ was used to distinguish from the stereotypical main stream view of ‘engineering’, to allow us to visualise the softer traits of a creative engineer. Rather than focus on the output, the process and initial thinking behind an inspiration was examined. When we think of invention, we (in the UK) still like the idea of a slight eccentric working away in their shed (like James Dyson). I don’t want to get into the discussion regarding who is and isn’t an ‘engineer’, but most engineers will have the capacity to influence society by meeting a demand, solving a problem or through innovation.
First year review
Today was my EngD annual review meeting to discuss my progress to date, current thoughts and develop a plan to move forward. On paper I was suppose to give a five minute oral presentation on research progress, but using a power point presentation stretched this to about thirty minutes. A divergent question and answer session meant the distinction between presentation and group discussion was completely lost. This was probably due to my rambling and a strong desire to move on.
Once the presentation was finished (or pointless to pick back up), the group discussion between academic and industrial supervisors was very useful to consider the system boundary and narrow the scope of research. During lectures we had been asked to consider formulating a grand research question that would be supported by a number of sub-questions that form the basis of the research project;
Grand Research question
How can a proactive defence posture be realised with the cyber domain?
My initial secondary research questions that I gave to start discussions are;
- How can effective cyber situation awareness be maintained?
- What information is required to aid decision making?
- How can the cost of attack be increased?
- How can a mature response readiness be maintained?
These secondary research questions will change as the problem space is investigated and stakeholders interviewed to understand their needs.
Negative comments on the presentation were mainly about the lack of ‘systems thinking’, influence diagrams or stakeholder analysis. The lack of systems thinking at this stage of the research was due to the wide scope or lack of a systems boundary as I tried to talk about factors influencing many levels from the individual to organisation to nation state, and within organisations to sector/supply chain to national infrastructure.
During the review everyone is able to give feedback on the other, and my company were very keen to hear about how they have supported my introduction to company and the status of the relationship. While I did have some minor points about expectations, there were no major concerns or stumbling blocks. The research engineer (RE) will normally spend 75% of their time in industry and 25% at the university, but to date I’ve spent my time in industry apart from lecture blocks and the odd Friday I can take as a ‘University day’. My company fully supports the university aspect of the EngD programme and allows academic work to trump day-to-day business.
Considering my progress after one year on the EngD compared to a normal PhD programme, I feel I am about six months behind someone on the PhD. I am usually based within the company, as a member of a team and attending university for week long lecture blocks mean that there are a number of demands that leave little time for the usual reading and literature review. I have promised myself to try and read at least one paper a day to try and tackle the pile of papers that keeps growing. I’m great at finding interesting papers and printing them off to read at a later date (that rarely comes). I do feel that the company environment will provide the constant pressure to progress that will pay off in the long term.
Taking the advice from PhD students who are in the writing up stage of their research and suggest that everyone start planning and writing content that might be used in posters, papers or their thesis at a later date. There was an idea that the thesis could be viewed as a system with a rough model. I was asked if there was an example of a good or ‘high quality’ EngD thesis. I answered that any doctoral level thesis that had been accepted would indicate the standard, but there still seemed to the attitude that people could ‘just pass’ or ‘just to enough’ to get a doctorate. Time constraints stopped the conversation about the international doctorate standard and that some might seem to have breezed through, conducted obvious experiments and research, but the underpinning knowledge, assumptions, justifications and academic rigour would ensure that all doctorates meet the same (relative) standard.
The EngD programme has the overall aim of graduating people who will be capable of leading innovation in the field of systems engineering. The EngD in Systems is a four-year research programme with REs undertaking core taught units normally in the first two years. REs undertake core training units delivered jointly by the Universities of Bath and Bristol. REs also undertake specialist units as appropriate. The taught units are new or existing postgraduate units at Bristol or Bath.
Innovative materials developed for construction industry
Natasha Watson, Research Engineer
Gordon Miller is the co-founder and sustainability & communications director of membership organisation Sustain Worldwide. He is a licensedBREEAM International Assessor and consults to housebuilders and developers on sustainability. He recently posted an article to the Guardian Professional Network about Innovative materials developed for construction industry.
Normally an article on the pioneering new materials and methods such as self-healing bioconcrete, 3-D concrete printers and a new generation of solar polymers that will help construction become more sustainable would only just catch my interest, but this article took the wise step of consulting an up and coming star within the field of sustainable building materials, and my cohort buddy, Natasha Watson.
Natasha Watson, a research engineer at Buro Happold, said, “The material’s qualities for use in living spaces include heat and moisture regulation, and it’s breathable which provides better indoor air quality. It’s a natural material that can be made weather-resistant using lime render.”
2011 IPICS Summer School
The Intensive Program on Information Communication Security (IPICS) academic summer school is a two week course for Master`s students in their final year, PhD students and IT professionals interested in a comprehensive overview and broad coverage of recent developments in “Information and Communication Security”. This year the IPICS was hosted by the Department of Informatics, Ionian University, at Kerkyra (Corfu), Greece.
The summer school provides the option to complete an essay on a topic from the lectures, worth 4ECT credits that count towards the additional module requirement within the EngD degree programme. The EngD programme has additional modules that allow the student to study MSc level modules relevant to their research. Meeting the additional module requirement within a two week period, helped ensure that my industrial sponsor saw the business case and value from my time away. This is a clear example of the fabled WIN-WIN-WIN situation.
The price of the IPICS summer school, accommodation and flights to Corfu, came under the internal budget for one MSc module. This allowed the University of Bristol to cover costs. This year the IPICS security summer school was sponsored by Kaspersky Anti-virus, who not only helped subsidise the event, but also provided attendees with a Kaspersky poloshirt and other goodies.
I ran the IPICS programme past an CISSP professional and senior security analyst within my industrial sponsoring company, who approved of the content as it covered many of the areas required in the CISSP certification. While the final content of the programme depends on the availability of lecturers from different fields, the topics for 2011 covered;
- Computer Malware
- Intrusion Prevention, Detection & Response
- Computer forensics & Incident Response
- Usability of Security and Security Culture
- Information Security Standards/ISO 27000 series
- Business Continuity Planning and Information Security
- Security Certifications (CISSP, CISA, CISM)
- The European Legal Framework on Data Protection
- Privacy Issues, Requirements and Enhancing Technologies
- Privacy in e-communications and Location-Based Services
- Cryptography and Cryptanalysis
- PKI, key and Identity management
- Smart Cards Authentication
- Security of Mobile Payments, Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) & Communications
- Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks
- Security in the Internet of Things (IoT)
- RFID Security
- Cloud Computing Security
- Software security and Obfuscation
While everyone had their favourite talks and topics, the whole programme provides a holistic view of the latest research and thinking across the information security spectrum. The content was easy to follow if the topic was not your field, and by the end of the course I feel I could approach any of the topics, confident that I now have been given a good background. The broad scope of the programme means that I now have some new ideas for research (such as P2P databases and true cloud services) and current ideas have been validated (such as usability of interfaces).
The IPICS course provides information security knowledge, but the true education comes from the multidisciplinary research of the international students and the extra curricular talks over drinks. Kerkyra is hot, and you soon find people to join you for an early morning swim off the dock or afternoon trips to the beach. The IPICS programme includes a (casual) GALA dinner and a weekend boat trip to explore more of the island. I can’t remember the last time I made so many new friends, learnt about so much new research across a wide range of fields or had so much fun 
I doubt I’ll be able to go to the next IPICS 2012 course as an additional module, so I’ll have to work on a potential talk to offer and see if I can get in that way!
Introduction to the EngD in Systems
This is a quick presentation I put together to introduce the EngD in Systems to other PhD students at a group meeting.
The outline of the talk was to provide a brief overview of the EngD programme at the University of Bristol Systems Centre, and how it differs from the usual PhD route. Before talking about the Systems thinking element of the programme, and it’s importance, I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on the benefits of Systems Engineering. I finished with a quick discussion on my current research interest into smart grid systems and the information security of critical national infrastructure.
The EngD
Association of Engineering Doctorates, http://www.aengd.org.uk
Systems Engineering
- An interdisciplinary approach, focused on defining the needs and requirements (especially early in development cycle),
- Design synthesis and system validation whilst considering the whole problem, across the complete lifecycle.
- Systems Engineering considers both technical and business needs of all customers/stakeholders.
Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems
- Every thing –even if it isn’t, can be considered as a system
- Using System properties is a means to understanding and managing the complexity of a system and preventing unwanted emergence
- A key aspect of complex engineering systems is the fact that they frequently suffer late-observed emergent properties – which are expensive and difficult to solve
- The problems faced by system creators are only getting more complex – or will have more complex interactions with existing systems
- The only known way of effectively reducing the problem is to apply Systems thinking systematically, rigorously as early in the problem life cycle as possible
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Big Picture thinking and the application of common sense to projects
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A structured and auditable approach to identifying the requirements, managing interfaces and controlling risks through the project lifecycle
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Making sure appropriate effort is put into understanding the purpose of system, and ensuring a top-down approach (rather than diving straight to detail solution)
What is Systems Thinking?
- Understanding the system elements
- Understanding the relationships between elements (‘interfaces’)
- Understanding any emergent properties
- Click for more Systems Thinking information >>
My Research
At this stage in my research, I mostly spoke about potential future research as we move towards an integrated ‘smart’ national infrastructure that will require levels of collaboration and information sharing, and the change management project required to assist with this transision. You can visit my research page for more information.
EngD Blogs
I have been meaning to search for other EngD blogs, but despite the EngD running for a number of years, there seems to be only a few. Looking at the google stats between search terms ‘EngD blog‘ (144k results, 0.27 seconds) and ‘PhD blog‘ (41.4M results, 0.18 seconds) highlights how under represented the EngD programme is – no wonder we have to keep explaining the difference.
Clare Hooper
I’m soon to graduate from my EngD (conducted in the University of Southampton’s Learning Societies Lab, sponsored by IBM UK). I now work in the User Centered Engineering group at the Eindhoven University of Technology. My research interests include (but are not limited to) hypertext, web science and how we design software. My webpage lives here, and I’m also on Twitter.
Personal http://clarehooper.wordpress.com
EngD research blog at Southampton University
Jo Symington
I’m doing bits of marine microbiology, bits of molecular biology, bits of chemistry and bits of engineering and I’m working with an industrial partner Croda… and I’m technically a biologist (at least I think I remember my first degree being Applied Biology…) so how have I ended up doing an EngD???
EngD research blog Jo’s Eng-mare!!!
Ben Betts
There I am currently studying for an EngD (Doctor of Engineering), studying the role of new technology for learning within corporate environments. I started this blog to collect my thoughts for the EngD and to test out some theories, mostly to see what kind of response they generate. @bbetts
http://www.ht2.co.uk/ben/?page_id=2
Some blogs that have started
EngD Eppie
I’m Eppie, currently in my first year of the Engineering Doctorate in Biopharmaceutical Bioprocess Development at Newcastle University. Yeah, it’s a real long name and I’m not 100% sure I’ve even got it down right. We just call it the EngD.
http://engdeppie.wordpress.com
I’m going to keep an eye out, but let me know if I’ve missed any!
May Activity
No time to think this month as we not only revise for the TSO exam (2nd June, 1Day) but also have a lecture block ‘Maths for Systems’ with daily bits of coursework to be completed (and it really mounts up if not done) and a module assignment.
I also squeezed the six month review in that I should have scheduled earlier to get it out of the way. The meeting was really to tick a box and fill in some paper work for the systems centre. I get the feeling my industrial supervisor was expecting a report or presentation, but I had to admit that with no time, I hadn’t prepared anything and this was going to be the first proper chat between us all about the research project. It was good to see that my academic supervisor was laid back and ‘happy’ with the level of progress made, which countered the business pressure to have an entire timing and requirements plan in place. I did come away with some action points and a better idea of a research direction that would benefit us all.
University
- EngD Lectures; Maths for Systems (16th-20th May)
- 6 Month Review (12th May)
- TSO Exam (2nd June)
- 2nd Systems Centre Annual Conference (24th – 25th)
- Literature Review
- Supervision; 1 Rasmus student (Systems Engineering), 2 MSc Students (DoS, Modelling)
- RASMUS Student research, survey and draft paper
Company
For confidentiality I obviously snip the sensitive parts from this activity log, but try to give an idea or theme of what I get up to as an EngD research engineer. This month was honestly, not a lot due to travelling to/from conferences and cramming for the TSO exam.
OTHER
- Defence IT 2011 Conference
- InfoSec 2011 Conference
- Future Ideas generation
Other
- Public Engagement – System Centre day for GCSE/sixth form students