Utvikling og bygging av bil for deltakelse i ECO-marathon-konkurransen

Abstract

The goal of this master thesis is to use the systems engineering in practice within a small scale, time constrained project to see if it has any value within development, coordination and final result.

The report identifies systems engineering theory fitting a time constrained project. The literature review on systems engineering identifies the holistic side of system development and then goes more in detail within requirements analysis, the concept, the final design, production and testing phases. It also goes more in depth about the value of systems engineering and within the coordination between project management and the systems engineer. The author has developed a customized methodology of a small scale and time constrained project that is applied to the case.

In order to apply the method, a case has been chosen where the author acts as the systems engineer in a real life project. The case is within development and construction of NTNU’s contribution to the 2011 Shell Eco-marathon competition. The 2010 team had problems within the interfaces of the different modules and this resulted in no results in the competition. This is why the Shell Eco-marathon team demanded a systems engineer to handle coordination and planning throughout the project.

The work of this thesis is formulated around the problem statement related to the case is as follows:

1. Is there any value having a systems engineer in a time constrained project?

2. How does a Project Manager and Systems Engineer cooperate and is Systems engineering beneficial for the Project Manger?

One of the main contributions of this thesis is to see if there is any value of systems engineering within a small scale and time constrained project. This is done by comparing the 2011 and the 2010 Shell Eco-marathon team. As well the customized methodology is tested during the case.

Suggested future research is to apply the systems engineering methodology developed in this master thesis for the 2011 NTNU Shell Eco-marathon team and measure the results. Second is following the NTNU Revolt team which will apply the same methodology and see how the development of the project goes. Third is suggesting to a company to use the systems engineering methodology in a time constraint project and measure the results.