1. INCOSE OPER ATIONS
Brazil: INCOSE’s New Frontier
Ricardo Valerdi, ricardo.valerdi@incose.org; George Sousa, georgew.sousa@incose.org; Petroleum, Petrobrás, Shell, Monsanto, and Mitsubishi with
and Geilson Loureiro, geilson.loureiro@incose.org a significant presence in the region and interest in systems
engineering.
O
ne of the exciting aspects of systems engineering is its appli- The more recent industry of renewable-energy systems in
cability across a broad range of cultures and industries. Two Brazil may use lessons learned from the successful experience of
recent examples in Brazil are the activities taking place in the Brazilian aeronautical industry. Brazil has the third-largest
renewable energy and aerospace. Renewable energy is energy that producer (in market share) of regional jets in the world: EMBRAER.
comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, EMBRAER is applying lean development, sustainable approaches,
and geothermal heat, which are naturally replenished. Brazil has and concurrent engineering for complex product development.
one of the largest renewable-energy programs in the world, where EMBRAER is the result of the creation of the Aeronautics Institute
approximately 46% of the domestically produced energy comes of Technology (ITA) in the 1950s. ITA was the starting point for the
from these sources, in contrast with a global average of 15%. Today aerospace complex that is in the city of São José dos Campos, São
more than half of the fuel used by automobiles in Brazil is renew- Paulo state.
able, mainly sugarcane ethanol. There is tremendous promise in From ITA, other institutes were developed such as IAE (Space
applying systems engineering to this industry because the alter- and Aeronautics Institute) responsible for orbital and suborbital
native fuel system needs to consider sustainability so that it can rocket development and INPE (Brazilian Institute for Space Research)
operate near equilibrium. responsible for satellite and space-payload development. Since the
Sustainability in renewable-fuel systems requires integrated 1980s, the Brazilian space program has developed eight atmospheric-
design, construction, and operation of complex subsystems from a data-collecting and remote-sensing satellites, an integration-and-
total-lifecycle perspective. There are significant social, technical, testing laboratory, a center for tracking and control of satellites,
economic as well as modern environmental requirements. These a launching base in the equatorial region, suborbital rockets for
subsystems perform many functions that must be integrated: microgravity experiments, and an incipient space industry. Spinoffs
Ethanol distillery facility at • large-scale production of biomass at geographically distributed from the Brazilian space program include automotive, medical,
the Costa Pinto sugar/ethanol
production plant, Piracicaba, São sites information technology, and telecommunication products.
Paulo, Brazil • transporting biomass from stock to fuel production facilities Tying both renewable energy and aerospace initiatives
• large-scale storage, flow, and use of water described above, a new mobility-engineering center has started in
• producing food 2010, in the city of Joinville, Santa Catarina state. Systems engineer-
• protecting natural resources and sustaining biodiversity ing in Brazil was consolidated in the city of São José dos Campos
• operating and maintaining large-scale machinery but is advancing toward other frontiers such as the city of São
• generating and distributing electricity Carlos (renewable energy, aeronautics, and optical systems), the
• storing and distributing liquid fuel city of Campinas (telecommunication and information technology
• manufacturing and use of flexible fuel vehicles systems), the states of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio
Grande do Sul (medical equipment), Bahia with automotive product
The Brazilian business model for creating renewable energy development, and renewable energy in Goiás, as mentioned above.
is being studied and replicated around the world. Goiás, a state These are just some examples of application areas for systems engi-
Itaipu Dam, the world’s largest in the center of the country, has recently been the laboratory for neering in Brazil. These, together with the challenges of organizing
hydroelectric plant by energy
generation and second-largest by state-of-the-art sugar-cane, ethanol, and electricity developments. the 2014 Soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, will bring Brazil
installed capacity There are multinational companies such as John Deere, British to center stage for systems engineering in the future.
50 December 2010 | Volume 13 Issue 4