Systems Engineering Quality Management (SEQM) Working Group

Mission

Quality Management is one of the six Organizational Project-Enabling Processes described in the INCOSE Handbook v5 (Section 2.3.3.5) and in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023. The overall purpose of the Systems Engineering Quality Management Working Group is to foster the definition, understanding and practice of quality management in the systems engineering profession. This purpose will be achieved by the establishment of quality management as a cornerstone of professional development that adds value to the systems engineering profession, and engineering in general, through the following initiatives:

• Developing and elaborating systems engineering as a leadership discipline with quality management as a foundational competency,
• Enabling systems engineers to develop and expand the skills to manage process quality and increase profitability,
• Considering the organization as a system, fully integrating the process, the person and the job description, and
• Raising the level of professionalism, corporate and technical influence, job satisfaction and the career path trajectory

Scope

Quality management, as addressed in this working group, is distinct from other aspects of quality such as quality assurance, quality control and acceptable quality levels. Quality management is also distinct from the SE disciplines of verification and validation of systems. This working group aims to address quality management as a leadership and management discipline, as applied within systems engineering. This follows the approach to quality management described in the works of Deming, Crosby and Juran, but limits the application to the engineering and systems engineering disciplines. The working group will also address the connections of quality management to other areas of systems engineering, notably systems thinking and organizational leadership.

Goals

1. Initial publication of a key definitional article on systems engineering quality management (2020)
2. Training SEQM Working Group leaders in quality management (begun Q3 2018 and continuing)
3. Delivery (since 2019) of regular webinars and tutorials on  Systems Engineering and Quality Management.
4. Development of SEQM leadership training for the INCOSE members. The Training WG will be informed of the training offered by SEQM so that Quality Management training  may be included on any INCOSE wide training plans
5. Enable and encourage INCOSE members to attend and achieve Quality Managers certification from the SEQM partnership with the Quality Management Institute scholarship program.  A free offering started in 2018,  
6. Launch of research projects to further develop SEQM and document quantitative results from the application of quality management in systems engineering
7. Build a continuing presence of SEQM thought at the INCOSE IW and IS, through submitted papers, panels and tracks
8. Developing SE-QM leadership descriptions and overview material, targeted for inclusion in key INCOSE publications such the Handbook (Version5)  and the SEBOK
9. Collaboration where appropriate with other INCOSE Working Groups to foster the understand and impact of adding QM to their work efforts, i.e., SEQM working with the Resilient Systems Working Group.