Systems Engineering

Effective systems engineering begins with a detailed understanding of requirements. AVISTA places extra emphasis on system requirements. The reason is simple: without comprehensive and accurate requirements definitions, objectives, constraints and specifications, we might build systems with elegant hardware and software features but have little or no relationship to what users want or need. Moreover, shortcuts during capture of system requirements might compromise whatever certification process is planned for the project, resulting in unnecessary and expensive rework.

AVISTA systems engineering is one of its key process areas for excellence in engineering projects. The following documents are the result of the systems engineering phase:

• Systems Requirements Definition
• Hardware Requirements Specification
• Interface Requirements Specification

Our ultimate goal is to convert verified requirements into working, maintainable systems of the highest quality built upon a common understanding of what the system must do. This agreement consists of data and information about requirements as well as early estimates of the complexity of the project/system, and how much time, effort and budget it will require to build and maintain.

Validation of the requirements ensure that the system does what the client partner intends. That is, validation answers the question, “Did we build the system correctly?”

Systems engineering is an integral part of the AVISTA development life-cycle.