SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
When I started my career with GE Medical Systems working on the design of the ground-breaking CT scanner, I discovered something I was not taught in engineering school. GE had whole departments dedicated to the various disciplines of engineering, such as, electrical, mechanical, x-ray, etc. These departments provided traditional entry points and growth paths. However, there was one department that was different from the rest - "systems engineering". I was intrigued by this department as it drove the development of the products. However, Systems Engineering had no traditional entry point. I was told that one had to excel in at least two disciplines of engineering to be even considered for a systems engineering position! That's when I knew that is what I wanted to do!
The systems engineer brings a holistic perspective to the job and can make or break the business. It was this early training that convinced me of the importance of systems engineering to success or failure of a business. I have tried to incorporate systems engineering principles in the operations of Syprosoft. In fact, the name of the company starts with the first two letters of the word "system"!
SyproPlan Accountability
Dipu Ghosh, Chief Engineer, Syprosoft Inc.
Our motto is "We Do What We Promise". How do we accomplish that when so many of our competitors fail?
Part of the answer is our risk averse ●●●RAPID® development process which segments a new product development into three phases - Engineering Unit, Demo Unit and Production Unit. The other part is our data-driven methodology for estimating project costs. There are many ways of estimating the likely cost of a project. Most of these methods involve a decomposition of the project into smaller elements that can be more easily estimated. A common technique is process decomposition. Another technique is the work breakdown structure. Furthermore, it is important to use project risk assessment to quantify inherent risks.
At Syprosoft a combination of these techniques is used for preparing SyproPLAN™ cost estimates. These are calibrated using actual data on projects completed in the past. This technique provides an effort probability distribution that is useful for budgeting. At the idea stage, the distribution may be quite wide. Once the ●●●RAPID® Engineering Unit is completed, the distribution gets much narrower. An example SyproPLAN™ is illustrated below.
Due to our refined ●●●RAPID® engineering and our SyproPLAN™ accountability, we are able to offer our clients transparent pricing with choice of fixed price, cost plus, and hourly rate engagements. For our start-up clients we offer the additional option of paying half of our fees in their stock.