Fertilizing the grounds for system architecting

“I had always thought of Heijmans as a company doing bulky construction work, totally incomparable to the precision mechanics we’re specialized in,” says Joost van Leeuwen, software architect at VDL ETG. “But I’ve learned that within the civil engineering domain, their projects are just as next level, with very similar system architecting struggles.” Johan van Rosmalen, system architect at Heijmans, concurs: “We’re monitoring asphalt, 25 by 25 centimeters at a time, for 40 kilometers. The scale is different, but the resolution is comparable, and so are the system-level challenges.”

Heijmans and VDL ETG, together with ASML, Smart Robotics, Ultimaker and Vanderlande, participate in the first edition of the multi-company system architecting training organized by TNO’s ESI. In six modules, spread out over nine months, instructors Gerrit Muller and Ale Riedstra support (aspiring) system architects to accelerate their competencies in the market-business-technology triangle. “For the first time in the twenty years ESI has been organizing this program, we’re having trainees from multiple companies, learning from each other,” Muller notes. “We’ve also further improved the integration of the ‘hard’ side of architecting and the ‘soft’ side of technical leadership.”