System Integration

Dedicated to the dissemination of System Integration information

The System Integrator

A System Integrator is someone who performs the task of ‘System Integration’ (S.I.), they put sub-systems together and ensure that they work as a ‘system’; if the system does not work they investigate why.

 

In recent years the definition of system integration has been expanded to include all manner of processes, I will stick to the traditional role of the S.I. engineer and explain that; this is the definition I use throughout this web site.

 

An S.I. engineer is involved in putting together entities that engineers have made, e.g. hydraulic systems, I.T. systems etc.  More and more they are asked to put together systems that weren’t connected in the past, e.g. connect an hydraulic system to an I.T. system, as the world becomes more and more ‘connected’ we will see a lot more S.I. being performed.

 

An S.I. engineer tends to know a little about a lot, they have a broad spectrum of knowledge.  They will be asked to put together many different types of systems so this broad knowledge is essential.

 

They will also need an ability to learn, they will not have covered all the possible sub-systems in their formal education so they will have to obtain the knowledge whilst employed.

 

Another attribute of S.I. engineers is the ability to ‘make things happen’ and to ‘get things done’.  Very often you will need to get different engineers to make minor changes to their sub-system; this will often be at a time when it is not a top priority, as far as they are concerned, their work on the project finished some time ago.  You will need the skills to get them to do some minor adjustments.

 

Although the employment opportunities for S.I. engineers are growing, and the fields are expanding, the traditional employment sectors are the defense industry and large I.T. companies. 

 

The defense world has always been concerned with connecting systems, i.e. improving ‘situational awareness’, it is the big I.T. companies which have seen a large expansion in recent years. 

 

The drive within much of the commercial world is do connect all their systems together so one department has ready access to the information generated by another department.

 

A natural next step, for the commercial world, are ‘Integrated Business Systems’, i.e. specialized I.T. systems, including the software, that mean that the whole business is linked together.

 

It is within these 2 areas, defense and the producers of Integrated Business Systems, where the most employment opportunities are on offer to the S.I. engineer.

 

On saying the above, the myriad of companies that produce goods that link to other goods also provide many employment opportunities.