Anas Thassim studied at the Centre for Systems Engineering, graduating in 2018, and now works for Jaguar Land Rover.
I did my MSc in Systems Engineering Management at UCL Centre for Systems Engineering, where amongst the areas taught was the importance of organizations adhering to a robust set of processes and systems during product development. Such processes and systems ensure that customer and system requirements are captured at every level whilst verifying and validating requirements are met in line with customer or user expectations.
On the UCLse MSc programmes, there is sometimes the opportunity to get involved with industry. I created the opportunity to work on my dissertation with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) to determine areas of improvement in the company’s systems engineering practices. This involved a two week visit to JLR’s engineering offices in Gaydon where I interviewed development engineers and testing engineers to understand the company’s working practices. My dissertation output was a report with a set of recommendations for improvements to JLR’s working practices.
JLR were very happy with my report and hence offered me a role as a Requirements Management Engineer in the Chassis domain!
Amongst my key responsibilities is to ensure that requirements specifications are written and communicated in a manner that is unambiguous when interpreted. I hold regular discussions with my team to cover such topics and take a lead in ensuring that requirements specifications are written to the highest standards. As the primary point of contact within my team for requirements I hold regular meetings with suppliers to ensure our specifications are communicated with them in a timely fashion, whilst also following up with them for prompt feedback.
Additionally, I participate in working groups with other JLR domains such as Powertrain and Electrical to determine areas of improvement in working practices throughout the business. This is to enable the business to become better aligned to develop vehicles more efficiently and robustly. I then work with teams within my Chassis domain to understand how these improvements can be implemented.