Dear members,

So much has happened over the last year in these unprecedented times and I wanted to give you an update on SESA’s activities and operations since the new SESA Executive Committee started in July 2020.

At our last General Meeting (June 2020), I outlined four broad objectives for SESA for the next two years:

Objective 1 – Increase member engagement and perception of value

Objective 2 – Better leverage SESAs relationships with EA, INCOSE and other groups to deliver value for its members

Objective 3 – Improve Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in membership and events

Objective 4 – Ensure simple, light-touch, sustainable, transparent, ethical Leadership and Governance of member funds

All of our efforts over the last 9 months have had these four objectives in mind helping us to focus our limited volunteer hours. As a group we have been very busy and the effort of the Executive Committee and our extended network of volunteers (approximately 60 people) has been inspiring. However, we understand that not everyone sees everything we do, so I want to share with you some of the activities we have undertaken over this period.

The SE Mentorship Program

In 2020, SESA ran a pilot Systems Engineering Mentoring Program bringing over 40 mentors and mentees together virtually to engage in discussions aimed at furthering their Systems Engineering careers.

The feedback from this program was overwhelmingly positive and we intend to run it every year from now on.

CPD and Networking Events

Over the last 9 months, SESA has run an average of one event per month across the country in several domains/industries.

Due to COVID-19, the majority of these events have been online enabling more attendees from across the country, with some events having in excess of 200 attendees.

Some of the topics delivered include:

1. Better Requirements in Infrastructure
2. A Systems Approach to Autonomous Vehicles (Joint event with Young Engineers Australia)
3. The art of architecting (joint event with UniSA)
4. A Digital approach to developing a rail system
5. A Generalised Architecture Framework for Complex Systems (Joint event with UniSA)
6. Telecommunications from a Systems Engineering Perspective
7. Risk Based Contracting and Verification (Joint event with INCOSE Netherlands)
8. Smart Cities Panel

External Engagement and Product Development

Over the last 9 months SESA has been harnessing the knowledge, expertise and passion of its members to contribute to several critical external engagement activities aimed at advancing the discipline of Systems Engineering in Australia and advocating for a more systemic approach to our nations most pressing issues. A summary of these activities is provided here:

1. Through SESA’s Resilience and Critical Infrastructure Working Group we provided feedback on the Australian Government’s consultation paper on “Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Systems of National Significance”. Click here for more information.
2. Also through SESA’s Resilience and Critical Infrastructure Working Group we provided feedback on the Department of Home Affairs Exposure Draft Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020. Click here for more information.
3. As a follow on to our submissions on the Security Legislation Amendment, SESA’s Executive Committee was invited to attend the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre panel discussion in Canberra.
4. SESA responded to the Department of Defence’s ASDEFCON and Procurement Review.
5. SESA was asked to, and contributed to Engineers Australia’s response to the Federal Governments discussion paper on the Future Fuels Strategy. Click here for more information.
6. SESA wrote and submitted a paper for the PPI Newsletter (also to be featured as a paper in IPEC) on the “An Overview of Systems Engineering in the Australian Transport Sector”. Click here to download a PDF of the article (originally published in the PPI Systems Engineering Newsjournal).
7. SESA’s local Telecommunications Working Group has contributed to the International effort drafting the Telecommunications application section within the SE Handbook v5.
8. SESA’s members continue to actively participate and contribute to the INCOSE Human Systems Integration (HSI) and INCOSE PM/SE Integration Working Groups, contributing to the development of the INCOSE SE Handbook and though sessions at SESA and INCOSE events.
9. SESA members to IT-015 (Standards Australia Technical Committee for Systems Engineering) are currently participating in the editing and balloting of ISO/IEC 24773 Certification of Software and Systems Engineering Professionals – Part 3: Systems Engineering. Click here for more information.

 Major Events

In October 2020, SESA organised and ran the Australian Systems Engineering Workshops (ASEW) for the first time virtually and it was a great success to the organizing committee. We had over 400 people attend the ASEW sessions across three days, which is the largest ever, ASEW attendance.

In addition, SESA is now in the final stages of organising the Integrated Project Engineering Congress 2021 (click here for more information),, which, for the first time will incorporate SESA’s well known Systems Engineering Test & Evaluation (SETE) into an integrated congress across four like-minded cross-domain Engineers Australia societies:

1. Risk Engineering Society
2. Cost Engineering Society
3. Project Controls
4. Asset Management Council

Marketing and Member Communications

In 2020 SESA launched its new website and is now being actively managed and updated to help keep our members and the general public aware of who we are and what we are up to www.sesa.org.au.

In addition, we have launched our new SESA LinkedIn account where we regularly post important news; advertise events and share interesting content. The LinkedIn page currently has 477 followers and is growing weekly. Click here to go to our LinkedIn page.

Systems Engineering Certification Program

SESA Certification Assessment Reviewer’s have been busy reviewing applications and liaising with INCOSE and Engineers Australia to facilitate both SE certification through INCOSE (e.g. ASEP and CSEP) and Engineers Australia (CPEng).

So far in the last 9 months SESA has processed the following applications:

• 14 CASE Reviews (leading to ASEP/CSEP)
• 23 Engineers Australia CPEng Interviews for people applying for practice in Systems Engineering

To find out more about SE certification through INCOSE and Engineers Australia please click here.

Administration and Governance

The SESA Executive Committee with the support of Engineers Australia has been working in the background to simplify the financial system, the administration system, the document management system, reviewing membership fees and considering updates to the Memorandum of Understanding between INCOSE and Engineers Australia (the document that enables SESA members to be INCOSE members at a reduced rate).

As you can see from the short summary above, SESA’s volunteers have been very busy representing the whole membership and creating valuable events, products and opportunities for us all.

This work could not be done without the dedicated leadership of the SESA Executive Committee, Engineers Australia and the numerous passionate volunteer members we have.

We still have so much more we want to do. If any of these activities or initiatives are of interest and you would like to get involved please reach out to me or our Communications and Engagement Team (comms@sesa.org.au).

Hope to see you at IPEC in May.

Regards,

John Nasr

SESA President

president@sesa.org.au