What is openSE?
OpenSE is a systems engineering framework, i.e. a project management framework suited to projects that consist of developing complex technical systems. More specifically, it is intended to provide means to manage efficiently development projects of complex systems submitted or emitting ionizing radiations, while paying a particular attention to four aspects that can easily be left aside because of the focus that is naturally given by the project team to the project deliverable itself. These four or five aspects are known under the RAMS or ORAMS acronyms that stand for the latter for Operability, Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety. Several studies have shown that out of the many challenges a complex system development project team has to face, having a least the final deliverable working properly concentrates most of the project team’s efforts to the detriment of several ORAMS aspects.
Because the success of a complex system development project relies on the capability of the project team at undertaking appropriately all ORAMS aspects, openSE provides means to address these five points of focus in an integrated way.
Why openSE?
The development of this dedicated framework is motivated by the observation that project management and systems engineering standards and methodologies, be they of general purpose such as the PMI‘s Project Management Body of Knowledge or more specialized such as the NASA‘s Systems Engineering Handbook, are not very suited to development projects of scientific facilities emitting ionizing radiations or systems subject to ionized radiations. It should be noted that scientific facilities or systems are importantly one-of-a-kind systems of an extreme complex nature. Project management and systems engineering frameworks designed for space development projects are partly suited, but for reasons that are fully understandable, they insufficiently take into account safety and remote engineering concerns to the extent of their level of requirements for scientific facilities emitting ionizing radiations or systems operating in environments with artificial ionizing radiations.
For more information about openSE, please, check http://opense.web.cern.ch