System Science and Engineering: Analysis of the Bruce Highway Project

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the system science and engineering principles applied to the Bruce Highway construction project in Queensland. It covers the preliminary design, detailed design, system testing, evaluation, and validation processes involved in the project. The preliminary design focused on creating a safer and more efficient roadway while minimizing environmental impact, including transforming Caloundra Road into a Diverging Diamond Interchange. The detailed design considered project timelines, initial design pace, human factors, and budget maintenance, with adjustments made post-construction to enhance safety. System testing involved individual equipment tests, discrete system tests, and integrated system tests to ensure all components functioned correctly. The evaluation phase assessed the effectiveness of each testing stage, leading to optimizations and validations. The report justifies the project's construction and analyzes the effectiveness of the systems engineering used, highlighting its positive impact on the community and environment. Desklib offers more solved assignments and resources for students.

Running head: SYSTEM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
System Science and Engineering
Name of the Student
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Preliminary Design......................................................................................................................3
Detailed Design...........................................................................................................................4
System Test..............................................................................................................................6
Evaluation................................................................................................................................8
Validation and Optimization Processes...................................................................................9
Evaluation........................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
System science and Engineering is all about the wholesome understanding of the entire
design and concept behind the development of any kind of project. The understanding of the
system science and engineering behind the project of construction for Bruce Highway as
described in this report would provide a clear idea about the entire concept, model, methodology,
and tools that have been utilized for the project (Pöyhönen, Kajander and Sivunen 2016). This
would help in identifying the entire prospects behind the entire development of the project and
the impact of the tools, methodologies and other important aspects utilized for it. The entire life
cycle of the project has been analyzed for this including the evaluation cycle as well as the
synthesis cycle.
The conceptual design for this is applied, for which the entire preliminary design and
detailed design for the Bruce Highway would be analyzed. The detailed design would further
provide insights about the systems test, the evaluation of the system test and the validation and
optimization process. With the explanations and implementation of the optimization of the
systems presented as such, there is a provision to describe the human factors in the entire project
progression as well (Gaffney, Bunker and Dawes 2017). Thus, with this report, there is a huge
possibility that the reason behind constructing the Bruce Highway over the busiest area of
Queensland would be justified to be constructed as a whole. The reason due to which this project
was started and the ways by which it has reached a conclusion would be justified and the impact
for all the systems engineering used will also be analyzed upon their effectiveness in the society.

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Preliminary Design
The preliminary design idea behind the construction of the entire project has been made
up to make the lives of the people in the associated areas better. The production of a roadway
that has a safer and efficient travelling experience for all the commuters, including the industrial
and the common people has been the key priority behind the construction of the Bruce Highway
(Ezeajugh, Sivakumar and Lalith 2016). Thus, the preliminary design concepts have utilized all
the leadership and the managerial aspects of the construction project. It has been found in the
construction project that the most effective implementation have been the utility provided as per
the leadership and managerial functions. The preliminary design idea has been developed to
make the commuters be as hassle free as possible while making the journey from Cairns to
Brisbane and vice versa (Ding, Tam and Huang 2016).
It is found to be an intelligent idea that the design team has put together a south bound
exit that needs to come out of the Pignata Road and thus helps in providing a direct as well as a
safe access to the local residences and the businesses. In addition to that, the project has also put
together the idea of making the roadway, which not only makes the connectivity of Brisbane and
Cairns over the shortest possible distance, but also makes sure that it reduces the forest footprint
of the Beerwah State forest (Yang et al. 2017). Thus, while making analysis of the entire system
engineering behind the construction project it can be seen that the design behind the Bruce
Highway has not only focused on making the commuters’ life easier by making a shorter
distance for them between Brisbane and Cairns, but also it wanted to make sure that for this the
neighbouring environment and greeneries are not disrupted.
It has also been found while the design process that on the same area where the Bruce
Highway project has been erected, there was an existing roadway called the Caloundra Road

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which had been further transformed into a Diverging Diamond and Interchange. This
transformation of the road into a diverging diamond and interchange has made sure that the roads
are transformed into a much safer and grade separated ramps. This would thus make the
intersection a much free flowing area, thus reducing congestion and reducing the time taken by
vehicles on the roadway between Brisbane and Cairns (Schmidt et al. 2017). Thus, the science
used for the design purposes and engineering of the Bruce highway has been focused on serving
the Queensland community with a safer, shorter and efficient roadway. In addition to that, the
after construction measures to make a certain speed limit for two-wheelers also made to realize
that the design process is not only focusing on the matters during the construction but also would
be focusing on the matters after construction as well (Shahandashti and Ashuri 2015).
Detailed Design
The detailed design of the entire system is meant by the assemblage of the elements of
the entire system that are related to each other functionally. The assemblage makes the entire
system into a singular unit (Fujita and Su 2015). The detailed design consists of utilizing the
components of the entire system and jotting them into an effective design for the construction of
the Bruce Highway. As per analysis, the construction behind Bruce Highway has not only used
the design to make a safer roadway but also has focused on the system engineering of the entire
construction process to make sure that the ecology of the area remain balanced. Not only this, but
also the process has been utilized to enhance the environment of the surrounding area. The area
has been found to have a certain amount of greenery, which has been taken care of while the
roadway was being constructed.
In addition to this, the roadway that was previously present over the area has been
modified to present a safer roadway. The detailed design of the construction process understands

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the necessities of the industrial as well as local commuters, making the path feasible for the
utilization of both groups of people (Constanda and Kirsch 2015). The detailed design consists of
few technicalities that can be described as below:
 Timeline of the project: It needs to be taken care of that the construction is of a
roadway and it cannot be carried on for a prolonged period of time to be
completed. This is to make sure that the normal transportation of the commuters is
not disrupted for a very long period of time to add to their inconveniences. The
completion of the north zone and the south zone construction has essentially gone
as per the desired limited and estimated timeline.
 Project Pace for initial design: The initial design phase of the project has been
completed much ahead of the estimated timeline including all the estimated
activities that consisted of the design phase, revamping and modification
processes.
 Human factors behind the design phase: The project has resulted in effective
contribution of human factors during design as well as the construction phase,
where the noticeable human factors have contributed to almost 60 per cent of the
entire project with just 5 per cent of error rates (Lim et al. 2016). Though it was
estimated to be almost 70 per cent with 1 per cent error rate, this was a
satisfactory outcome for the design and the construction phase altogether.
 Maintenance of the construction and budget: The estimated budget and
maintenance of the entire project has been almost 8.5 billion AUD with a once a
year maintenance plan. Although, after the construction was completed, the
design of the roadway made the constructors to make a little changes in the

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budget and maintenance plans (Ellis and Bohle 2016). The once in a year
maintenance has been increased to twice a year plan along with the increased
budget of 10 million AUD. However, the analysis has proved that this was
justified and a little overshooting of the project budget is not much to bear for the
government taking the safety of the common people into consideration.
System Test
The system test makes use of the operation phase to make sure that all the equipments
and systems are thoroughly tested to verify that the performance of the entire project as a whole.
This system test is performed through a breakdown process that consists of three stages for
realizing the construction process of Bruce Highway. These can be explained in details as
follows:
 Individual Equipment Test: The first step of the system test takes into account
about all the pieces of equipments that has been utilized to progress through the
project of Bruce Highway construction (Blanchard, Fabrycky and Fabrycky
1990). This has made sure that every piece of equipment has functioned correctly
in the entire project and has successfully made it into a wholesome unit. This
stage was conducted for a visual and mechanical inspection of the equipments that
have been used for the project to make sure that every equipment have been
installed properly and no damage had occurred during the installation as well as
working process. The visual inspection has been conducted by the comparison of
the nameplate data with the design drawings, the inspection of the physical
condition of the systems, the alignment checking, the anchorage checking, the
grounding checking, the cleanliness verification of unit, the connection inspection

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and the timer settings. After all the inspection procedures are conducted, it was
found that the equipments used for the construction of Bruce Highway Project
was absolutely effective and at par with the construction process.
 Discrete System Test: After the integrated system test has been performed and
all the equipment reviews are confirmed, all the equipments were examined as a
whole discrete system. In this phase, the unit individual equipments which were
tested before would be grouped in sequence as per their functionalities served at
the construction site (Gupta et al. 2016). For example, the UPS, power
distribution unit and switchgear, which were tested as individual equipments,
would further be treated as a whole unit performing electricity load operations.
 Integrated System Test: This phase can be considered as final verification
process. This takes into consideration of all the equipments of the facility taken as
a whole. This would also include all the aspects of using a particular set of
equipments from the aspect of mechanism, control and safety of human factors in
the process as well (Chung et al. 2016). This will be done to make sure that the
entire system is utilized as a whole integrated functioning project with no lag or
wastage behind. Since, this project consists of making the roadways of
Queensland area a bit less congested and helping the commuters as an extension,
these phases needs to be taken care of entirely for system testing to make sure that
all the functionalities of the project is working accordingly. Proper system
engineering supports not only a process but also people affected by the project.
Thus, it is necessary that all the checking must be done in order before and after
the project completion.

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Evaluation
The individual, discrete and integrated system testing has been done on the Bruce
Highway project and thus as per the finding s of the project, there has been few evaluations made
after the System Testing. The elaborated evaluations made after phase by phase checking of the
system can be described in details as follows:
Individual Equipment Test: This stage was conducted for a visual and mechanical
inspection of the equipments that have been used for the project to make sure that every
equipment have been installed properly and no damage had occurred during the installation as
well as working process (Kline 2015). The visual inspection has been conducted by the
comparison of the nameplate data with the design drawings, the inspection of the physical
condition of the systems, the alignment checking, the anchorage checking, the grounding
checking, the cleanliness verification of unit, the connection inspection and the timer settings.
After all the inspection procedures are conducted, it was found that the equipments used for the
construction of Bruce Highway Project was absolutely effective and at par with the construction
process.
Discrete System Test: In this phase, the unit individual equipments which were tested
before would be grouped in sequence as per their functionalities served at the construction site.
The discrete system checking has been made and after that the evaluations found out that though
the procedure has taken up a bit more time than estimated, it is still a feasible process that is
effective for the Bruce Highway Project, satisfying all the phases of the project.
Integrated System Test: This takes into consideration of all the equipments of the
facility taken as a whole. This would also include all the aspects of using a particular set of
equipments from the aspect of mechanism, control and safety of human factors in the process as

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well. The evaluation has found out that as individual equipments working as a whole process, a
few setbacks have been counted, but as a whole the process is quite an effective one. This is
because; it not only satisfies the project needs but also is feasible to the surroundings that
encompass the area where the construction is being set up.
Validation and Optimization Processes
The Bruce Highway Project would not be considered successful if it only takes the
environmental and sociological prospects into consideration. No project can be redeemed as
successful if it only utilizes its resources to the fullest for the benefit of the people and
surroundings (Villacís et al. 2017). It is also necessary in a construction project that the owners
of the project are able to make the most of their invested money. This would make sure that the
Cost, Schedule and Quality of the project is maintained.
As per the Bruce Highway project and its system science and engineering analysis, it can
be found that there has been adequate value added to the entire project. However, if the Cost
Analysis is done on the project, it can be seen that due to the exceeded estimated time, the budget
has overshot by 1.5 billion AUD. Thus, the owners have been through a little budgetary issues.
Other than that, the project can be redeemed as a successful one.
Evaluation
Evaluating the entire project for Bruce Highway on the area near Queensland, one of the
busiest roadways in Australia, it can be easily stated that the system design and engineering
utilized for the entire process have proved to be effective. This is because; the main reason for
the construction of the Bruce Highway was to decrease congestion in the area of Queensland. All
the system design used for the construction of the Bruce Highway has been focused on making a

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better roadway which would be far safer than the previous ones in the area, reduce the time that
was taken previously for reaching Brisbane from Cairns, enhance and improve the resilience to
flooding, improve the freight efficiency and enhance the reliability of the roadways network
during the flooding events. The conceptual design for this is applied and the above evaluations
have been identified, for which the entire preliminary design and detailed design for the Bruce
Highway have been analyzed.
The detailed design has further provided insights about the systems test, the evaluation of
the system test and the validation and optimization process. With the explanations and
implementation of the optimization of the systems presented as such, there is a provision to
describe the human factors in the entire project progression as well. Thus, with this report, the
reason behind constructing the Bruce Highway over the busiest area of Queensland has been
justified to be constructed as a whole. The reason due to which this project was started and the
ways by which it has reached a conclusion has been justified and the impact for all the systems
engineering used are also analyzed upon their effectiveness in the society.

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References
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Constanda, C. and Kirsch, A. eds., 2015. Integral Methods in Science and Engineering:
Theoretical and Computational Advances. Birkhäuser.
Ding, Z., Yi, G., Tam, V.W. and Huang, T., 2016. A system dynamics-based environmental
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