Systems Engineering Testimonials

Ed Ryen, P.E. ITS Engineer North Dakota DOT Bismarck, ND I am responsible for the ITS planning and deployment to meet the needs of the department.  My experience on ITS projects includes routine to complex deployments.  I meet with stakeholders to educate them on the use of the regional architecture and the system engineering process.

How long have you been using systems engineering on your ITS projects?

For the past year or so, we have been using the process quite diligently; prior to that it was hit or miss due to lack of understanding of the process.

Did you encounter any challenges in earlier ITS projects that a more formalized use of systems engineering would have minimized or avoided?

There were a couple of incidents where the process was not used that resulted in the loss of Federal funds for the deployments.  Another time the process was not used to the extent it should have been, resulting in a system that was not installed properly. We are still trying to resolve issues related to the system installation.

How has systems engineering helped you and your organization?

Systems engineering has helped us document our processes better and has helped us realize some of the analysis’ can be reused on other projects, Identification of stakeholders, which can sometimes be overlooked as well as the operation and maintenance of a system once it is deployed.

What aspect of systems engineering have you found to be most helpful?

We have found the traceability aspect of the process to be one of the more helpful aspects.  This aspect of the process has allowed us to link outcomes for a project back to stakeholder needs, which in turn has allowed us to better keep to the intended scope of a project (i.e., prevent scope creep).

How have you benefited from use of the Systems Engineering Guidebook website?

Yes, it has helped us develop systems engineering process guidance for use within our organization.