The past decade, practice and literature have shown an increasing interest in Systems Engineering (SE) in the civil engineering industry. The aim of this study is to analyse to what extent SE is applied in six civil engineering SE projects of a Dutch water board. The projects were analysed using a framework that was developed from existing SE literature. The projects that scored highest on the application of SE were those where the project leader was highly motivated to apply SE, where top management support for SE was arranged, and where an experienced engineering consulting firm was involved. The lowest scoring project was a routine project in which project team members considered the use of SE unnecessary. To improve SE implementation and execution in organisations, it is recommended to arrange top management support for SE, to enhance the SE skills of employees, and to establish clear SE standards and procedures.ARTICLE HISTORY
Value Engineering is a so‐called specialty engineering activity within Systems Engineering according to the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook [INCOSE, 2015], but what makes Value Engineering a ‘specialty,’ and what can it offer Systems Engineers? In this article three Value Engineering concepts are described, which are the pillars of Value Engineering: 1) the definition of value, 2) the use of multi‐disciplinary workshops, and 3) the application of function diagramming with the FAST method. Each of these concepts is explained and ideas are put forward how to incorporate them in more commonly used Systems Engineering processes. Our findings show that Systems Engineering and Value Engineering are not mutually exclusive, but offer outstanding concepts to improve designers’ goals. With this article, we hope to inspire the Systems Engineering and Value Engineering communities to further explore and experiment together.
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