About the Systems Engineering Teaching Laboratory (SETL)
The SETL lab is located at the University of Queensland at the St Lucia campus in the ITEE building called General Purpose South in room 78-208. The lab is equipped with state of the art Computer Aided Systems Engineering (CASE) tools with a commercial value of over $3M.
Software in the Lab
- IBM Rational DOORS
This software is for requirements management and the traceability of those customer requirements throughout the process of conceiving, designing and implementing a system. For example it allows teams of engineers from different specialisations and different companies to work cooperatively to collect, analyse, review and update broad customer requirements all the way through to detailed technical design details and test cases.
- IBM Ration Tau and
IBM Rational Rose
These two allow the engineer to model and verify the behaviour of a system early in the design. For example these tools allow systems to be described in a visual language (UML) that can be understood at all levels of an organisation from requirements analysts through to the engineers designing the system and the people using the system.
- Matlab
This software is a mathematics specific language, simulation environment and visualisation tool for the mathematical analysis and simulation of detailed technical designs in all fields of science, math and engineering. A systems engineering example is that engineers can use the software to do numerical analysis and advanced modelling to predict how their systems will perform in different environments.
- Crystal Ball 2000 and
Excel Solver
These two tools use statistical methods that will be used in this lab for financial analysis, optimisation and project planning. For example an engineer can determine how to optimally prioritise the scheduling of the manufacture of parts in a system. Another is determine which projects should be initiated based on market analysis and cost / benefit studies.
- Core
This tool allows the systems engineer to model the control flow, function flow and data flow of a systems engineering project. The tool can show various views of a project by generating diagrams and reports. The diagrams it can generate are - Element, Relationship, Attribute View (ERA)
- Hierarchy View
- Functional Flow Block Diagram (FFBD)
- Enhanced FFBD (EFFBD)
- IDEF0 Diagram
- Functional Interface (N2) Diagram
- Physical Block Diagram
The tool can also automatically generate reports and html representations of the systems engineering database with a scripting language to support user generated reports.
Systems Engineering at the University of Queensland
Beginning in January 2004, UQ will be offering Systems Engineering as a field of study in the Masters of Engineering program. For more details contact Professor Peter Lindsay, Boeing Professor of Systems Engineering.