49004 Systems Engineering for Managers Learning Material Exercises (RME)

The RME assessments mainly comprise exercises from the subject Study Guide. There may be some questions in addition to those in the Study Guide. The exercises are repeated/listed below. They require you to read the material indicated in the topic study guides. The exercises are to be completed and submitted as indicated in the General RME Instructions available in the Assessments Folder in UTS Online. They are due via UTSOnline BEFORE 5pm of the day nominated below. The link to submit your responses will no longer be available after 5pm of the due date. DO NOT EMAIL your responses or use other assignment links to submit them. Each RME will be marked out of 3 marks, and your total marks for all the RME will be scaled to 10%, which is the component of the subject marks allocated to this assessment item. RME 1: 1. 2. An uninhabited building is a closed system. True or false? Justify your answer. (No more than 50 words) Consider the definition of system in the reading by Myers and Kaposi. Compare and contrast this definition with the one discussed in class. (No more than 80 words, or answer using a table) Do emergent properties exist in every system? Explain. (No more than 50 words) What is the significance of the distinction between an entity, a referent and a representation as discussed in the Myers and Kaposi reading? (No more than 80 words)

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Due: 08 March 2013 RME 2: System Dynamics: A manager wishes to ensure that a desired level of resources is available at all centres she is responsible for. This desired level may be changed by her from time to time. To ensure adequate resources, she adjusts the actual resources towards the desired resources to keep them as close as possible. The time RME 2013.docx -1-

required to add additional resources is AT. The resources are adjusted at the resource adjustment rate. Your tasks: n Construct a Causal loop diagram for the situation. n Construct a corresponding stock and flow diagram. n Formulate relevant equations that you will need for simulating the behaviour of the system. n Identify what type of behaviour is exhibited by this system. Soft Systems Methodology: 1. Why is a study of soft systems appropriate to Engineering or Project Managers? (No more than 50 words) 2. Given the following root definition, perform a CATWOE analysis and indicate the elements (i.e. customers, owners etc.): A city-council run information service to assist visitors to the city in having a pleasant time in the city. 3. A library wishes to ensure that its patrons return borrowed books on time. To encourage this, they have instituted a system of fines for late books. However, to be fair, they issue a books due warning one week before the due date, and allow a grace period of 2 days after the due date before the notice of the fine is issued. If the books are returned within the grace period, then no fines are issued. However, if the books are not returned within the grace period, then the fines are levied on a per day late basis, starting from the day after the original due date. Construct an SSM type conceptual model for a system that will accomplish this. Due: 05 April 2013 RME 3: 1. What does system life-cycle thinking add to engineering as currently practiced? What are the expected benefits to be gained from such thinking? (Refer textbook chapter 2.)

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2. 3.

Textbook Chapter 4 Problems 23, 26 Textbook Chapter 3 Problems 4,15

4. Study Guide Topic 3.2, Exercise 1 Due: 19 April 2013 RME 4: 1. 2. Textbook Chapter 12 Problems 5. A decision needs to be made whether to buy two, three or four diesel generators for the power system of an oil platform. Each generator will normally be working and can supply up to 50% of the total power demand. The reliability of an individual generator may be specified by a constant failure rate of 0.21 per year. The generators are to be simultaneously tested and proved at six-monthly intervals. (i) If the required system reliability is to be at least 0.99, how many generators must be bought? (ii) Calculate the MTTF for the chosen system.
Useful formulae: eaxdx = (1/a) eax ! MTTF = !

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A system is made up of a temperature sensor (T), a humidity sensor (H), a pressure sensor (P), a processor (Proc), a display unit (Disp) and an audible alarm unit (Audio). The processor processes inputs from the sensors and provides visual and audible outputs for system users. The system finds application in various situations. Three such applications are as follows: a. An application where the system must provide either an audible or visual indication from at least one of the sensors. b. An application where both types of outputs are required from all the sensors.

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c. A system where at least one sensor output is required. The output must be both auditory and visual. Construct System Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD) for each of these applications. Are the RBDs different? Using appropriate notation derive expressions for the System Reliability in each case. What general conclusion can you draw from this exercise regarding the construction of RBDs? 4. Textbook Chapter 13 Problem 8 and Problem 25.

Due: 17 May 2013 RME 5 1. Why is there an emphasis on Trade Study in Systems Engineering? 2. Relate the notion of models discussed in class to the concept of representation discussed in the reading by Myers and Kaposi. 3. You have been appointed the systems engineering manager on a project. List some of the items that you would be concerned with in this role? List some of the key risks that you would focus on? Due: 31 May 2013 Relevant Topics: For your convenience the relevant topic indicated in the Study Guide for each RME assignment is repeated below: RME # Study Guide Topic 1 1.1 2 2.1 and 2.2 3 3.1A and 3.1B 4 3.3 5 3.4 3.6

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