Christophe Waterplas

NSW State Manager & Principal Consultant

MEng

Christophe is a Principal Consultant and NSW State Manager with 20 years' experience delivering systems engineering and safety management for safety-critical applications across rail, medical devices, and telecommunications.

A proven technical leader with deep expertise in Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), Christophe brings a collaborative, structured approach to complex, multi-discipline programs — from early architecture development through to system integration, verification, and regulatory certification.

Christophe’s core specialisation is MBSE, applying SysML modelling in Cameo Systems Modeller and Vitech Genesys to develop functional, logical, and physical system architectures that underpin robust requirements management, interface control, and verification and validation programs. He is highly experienced in IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS and DOORS Next, including the deployment of end-to-end systems engineering frameworks built on IBM Lifecycle Management toolchains. This capability has been central to his work on some of Australia’s most complex rail modernisation programs, where breaking down engineering silos and maintaining consistent baselines across large multi-discipline teams has been critical to program success.

Christophe has played a key role in the Transport for NSW Digital Systems Program as Systems Engineering Lead and later as System Engineering and System Assurance Manager for the System Integrator. In these roles he was responsible for the full suite of systems engineering management plans, covering requirements, configuration, interfaces, and verification and validation, as well as overseeing the deployment of the program’s MBSE framework across the Sydney Trains network. He also served as Change and Configuration Manager, maintaining the program baseline and approving all SESA team deliverables.

Christophe is currently supporting the Cross River Rail Lead Integrator team, where he is consolidating safety controls into an integrated safety function list for system validation, maintaining the system architecture model, and supporting resolution of ISA findings related to cybersecurity.

Prior to entering the rail sector, Christophe spent eight years as a systems engineering leader on medical respirator and ventilator programs. His responsibilities spanned the full development lifecycle: system safety risk management to ISO 14971, requirements specification, architecture design using trade-off analysis, design review planning, V&V, and regulatory submission. He established the requirements management structure and reporting templates using IBM DOORS and RPE, led the Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) audit response for a new ventilator product, and prepared technical files for device certification.

With expertise spanning EN50126, IEC 14971, IEC 62366, and IEC 62304, and a track record that crosses rail, medical, and telecommunications sectors, Christophe offers clients a broad perspective on how to build and manage systems engineering programs that are both technically rigorous and practically deliverable in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.

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Specialises in:

  • Systems Engineering

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