“you cannot outsource integration”
The March IET Central London Network evening lecture was something special, as it was in collobaration with our friends from the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers. Our guest speaker was Emma Davey, head of engineering for the Transport for London Docklands Light Railway, and the aim was to provide the full lecture theatre at Savoy Place an insight into her vast experience of dealing with complexity whilst delivering UK railway projects.
Emma has been both client and supplier, and she was to draw on her experience of delivering the Jubilee Line Extension and Crossrail. She identified five key themes whilst dealing with Railway Systems Integration¹:
- Responsibility
- Complexity
- Staged Delivery
- Scope
- Stakeholders
Of these bullets two were of particular interest.
Responsibility
On the theme of Responsibility, Emma had some fascinating insights. Railway Systems Integration is firmly the client’s responsibility, and the quote at the header of this blog is from a fantastic paper on Crossrail titled Grasping the Nettle. But what grabbed my attention was the Thermocline of Truth.
A thermocline is a distinct temperature barrier between a surface layer of warmer water and the colder, deeper water underneath. In many large or even medium-sized IT projects, there exists a Thermocline of Truth, a line drawn across the organizational chart that represents a barrier to accurate information regarding the project’s progress. Those below this level tend to know how well the project is actually going; those above it tend to have a more optimistic (if unrealistic) view. There are many reasons why this occurs, but those familiar with traffic light reporting will know that no-one wants to be the first to go red!
Complexity
On Complexity Emma pointed out that train manufacturers have become accidental software developers; gone are the days when control of trains and signals was performed by multiple relay banks. Nowadays there are multiple software systems onboard a train, often from different suppliers (based in different countries), that need to talk to each other. Simple things such as holiday seasons in Europe can have a major impact on project delivery!
As you can imagine, a packed lecture theatre led to many questions for Emma. Two rang a bell with me but, disclaimer: I am employed as a Systems Engineer within the railway industry, and my interpretation of events my vary from yours. The first question related to Staged Delivery, and there was a general view that we in the UK preferred a Big Bang approach as opposed to the gradual staged approach taken in Europe. I am not sure that this is true, and I can think of many projects where the service was introduced in steps. The second question was more existential: do we identify lessons learned and promptly forget them a few years later? Emma related that her research for this lecture uncovered a vast amount of information on lessons and best practice from previous project which should be used, and our own London Network chair felt that the key was to keep project teams together. I think our rail industry is always improving, but it saddens me to find that there remains a view from some parties that you can indeed “outsource integration”. The compelling evidence presented by Emma suggests that it is firmly a client responsibility.
Let me know in the comments below if you agree and please follow the Central London Network on X (Twitter) and Facebook.
¹ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288: The purpose of the Integration process is to synthesize a set of system elements into a realized system (product or service) that satisfies system requirements, architecture, and design.
Watch the Lecture on IET TV here:
https://tv.theiet.org/index.html?videoid=18161
Did you know that Savoy place has a 24/7 webcam? https://www.theiet.org/about/our-venues/iet-london-savoy-place-webcam
