Critical Infrastructure

Critical Infrastructure Working Group

Working Group Purpose & Mission

Mission:

The purpose for the Critical Infrastructure Protection and Recovery (CIPR) Working Group (WG) is to provide a forum for the application, development and dissemination of systems engineering principles, practices and solutions relating to critical infrastructure protection and recovery against manmade and natural events causing physical infrastructure system disruption for periods of a month or more.

Critical infrastructures provide essential services underpinning modern societies. These infrastructures are networks forming a tightly coupled complex system cutting across multiple domains. They affect one another even if not physically connected. They are vulnerable to manmade and natural events that can cause disruption for extended periods, resulting in societal disruptions and loss of life.

The inability of critical infrastructures to withstand and recover from catastrophic events is a well-documented global issue. This is a complex systems problem needing immediate coordinated attention across traditional domain and governmental boundaries. For example, the US President issued Presidential Policy Directive PPD21 that addresses a national unity of effort to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure.

This includes an imperative to implement an integration and analysis function to inform planning and operations decisions regarding critical infrastructure. This working group will seek to support this and other policies with international reach. INCOSE, as the premier professional society for systems engineering, can provide significant contributions toward critical infrastructure protection and recovery.

Application Domains

TechOps Domain

84

Members

2012

Established

Chair

Anthony Adebonojo

Co-Chair(s)

John Juhasz

Stephen Sutton

Inquiries

[email protected]

Scope

Certain man-made and natural events have a known potential to affect societies at a national, continental or even global scale. Such events can cause extreme harm well beyond those experienced from regional catastrophic events, especially when the effects will take longer than a month to recover. Three examples of events with the potential to cause critical infrastructure collapse include Solar Storms caused by Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and Cyber Events (intentional and otherwise). The CIPR WG will pursue its goals by addressing these three classes of events, and other classes of events with similar potential, when identified.

The CIPR WG will promote and apply systems engineering principles with emphasis on policy, analysis and concepts useful to understand, protect and recover existing operational infrastructure, and to provide strategies, standards and concepts for more resilient approaches, through evaluation, development and implementation of specific recommendations that can be accomplished with primarily volunteered resources. It will promote and perform activities supporting the stated goals.

This scope is synergistic with other INCOSE WGs identified above (e.g. MBSE, System of Systems, Resilient Systems, Power & Energy, etc.). For example, the application of model-based approaches will be essential to analyze the problem and to communicate alternative conceptual solutions. Therefore, this WG will seek interest and participation from INCOSE members and the other INCOSE WGs. It will also reach out to engage international and governmental organizations, professional groups, critical infrastructure providers, and others stakeholders. MOUs, contracts and other kinds of agreements may be sought with external organizations as needed to further the effort. These agreements, if any, will be established according to INCOSE guidelines, processes and procedures.

The critical infrastructure domains addressed by the CIPR WG include the following sectors. Other domains may be addressed as the need is identified.

1. Chemical

2. Commercial Facilities

3. Communications

4. Critical Manufacturing

5. Dams

6. Defense Industrial Base

7. Emergency Services

8. Energy

9. Financial Services

10. Food and Agriculture

11. Government Facilities

12. Healthcare and Public Health

13. Information Technology

14. Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste

15. Transportation Systems

16. Water and Wastewater

Goals

To support CIPR WG Members through monthly speakers and other events
To grow the practice of System Engineering (SE) in the Critical Infrastructure (CI) Domain through the use of Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and other tools

Outcomes

Working Group outcomes coming soon ...

IW25: International Workshop Focus

TBD

Planned Activities

Weekly CIPR Leadership calls to coordinate technical products and projects
Monthly CIPR International Calls open to INCOSE membership and broader research community
Submit 4 technical project proposals related to the products and projects established in the CIPR Workshop
Establish a coordinated presentation, session, or track to be included in the INCOSE IS 2021 or 2022 program
Develop more robust outreach plan to academic and professional organizations

Planned Work Products

The CIPR WG will submit technical project proposals and complete the following technical products:

A SysML model of the Dept. of Homeland Security critical infrastructure sectors and their relationships: this model will present a simple way to navigate the relationships across numerous critical infrastructure systems.
A resilient hospital reference model: this model will support emergency planning for hospitals, with emphasis on black sky events like long-term blackouts.
A model of the COVID 19 vaccine last-mile supply chain: we will develop a model to determine how and why there are significant delays in COVID 19 vaccine distribution
A standard for data and sensing cybersecurity and trust: we will work with experts across organizations to help develop a standard for data collection and sensing equipment for industrial controls.

Find out more by visiting the Working Group Yammer community today!

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