INCOSE Enchantment: Agile Processes Applied to Los Alamos National Laboratory SE Approach
Meeting Title: Agile Processes Applied to Los Alamos National Laboratory SE Approach: The Agile Processes and Technology Team
Presenter Name: Owen Dominguez & Gregory Chavez
Date: Wednesday, 13 September 2023
Time: 04:45 PM - 6:00 PM Mountain Time
Venue: Online via ZOOM
Registration: Zoom link is provided in the meeting invitation; contact the POC to request the meeting invitation.
Abstract:
A myriad of industries is investigating and applying new technologies, approaches, and software to improve the systems engineering life cycle status quo, by reducing the time duration and lowering the cost incurred in the systems engineering process. One effort undertaken, and described herein, is pairing an Agile-Lean framework with models-based systems engineering (MBSE) to achieve time saving and cost efficiencies quickly within systems engineering concepts to production systems phases. This is being done by the Agile Processes and technologies (APT) team who are tasked to deliver a weapon prototype in three years. For this purpose, APT has adopted practices currently used in industry to speed up the conventional processes and practices within Los Alamos National Laboratory and partners, particularly by implementing Agile-Lean within MBSE. APT has demonstrated agility by implementing changes at the organizational scale; given that most of the work done at the facilities is heavily based on design and hardware performance. In addition, MBSE is used to support verification and validation activities to drive acquisition of necessary evidence to establish traceability and compliance needed for qualification and certification, as per stakeholders’ requirements. This paper describes the current efforts towards implementing MBSE in an Agile-lean framework to represent a complex system —weapon prototype—, in a rapidly moving and changing environment to enable informed decisions through the identification and capture of useful decision criteria.
Biography:
Owen Dominguez is a Digital System Engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory who applies agile and model-based system engineering methodologies to support and manage complex systems throughout their life cycles. He currently is a system engineer on one of the LANL weapons systems. Owen holds a B.S.E. from Loyola Marymount University, CA in Electrical Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, IN in Electrical Engineering.
Gregory M. Chavez has worked on various weapons system while at LANL and during this time he has served in various roles including deputy program manager, system product realization team leader, lead systems engineer, requirements project manager, test engineer, and risk engineer for decisions applications. Gregory is the R&D Manager for the Weapons - Digital Engineering Strategy at LANL. Previously, he was the system architecture lead for a project using Agile process technologies and model-based systems engineering to fast track a particular system design into production. He has a PhD in Engineering, an MS in structural engineering, a BS in civil engineering, is a licensed professional engineer in New Mexico and working on a certification in systems engineering.