Maximising certainty of outcomes on Europe’s largest infrastructure project.

HS2 is a state-of-the-art, high-speed line critical for the UK’s low carbon transport future. It will provide much-needed rail capacity across the country and is integral to rail projects in the North and Midlands – helping to level up the UK economy.

The team implemented a tailored systems approach to tackle the scale and complexity of the project. Drawing on the four pillars of systems thinking, systems engineering, systems assurance, and systems integration, we maximised the certainty of project outcomes, while minimising costly reactive interventions - ensuring all technical requirements were satisfied, evidenced and assured swiftly and efficiently.

With 4,000 technical requirements including engineering and environmental components ranging from air quality to viaduct design, a systems approach enabled us to connect our customer’s expectations with tangible and specific outputs.

By working in this way, we delivered a fully assured system in a, constantly evolving environment. Our work accelerated the delivery of technical assurance products by 40% and reduced the cost by approximately 30%.

This project changed people’s perception of systems thinking and systems engineering and with clear communication we made it more accessible to non-systems engineers.

Working together, the team embraced the systems approach. We facilitated widespread efficiencies, and the integrated team successfully delivered the project requirements earlier than planned.