Frances Xiao

Consultant

BEng, MIEAust, iESM

Frances is a systems engineer with more than four years of experience across major rail infrastructure and rolling stock programs in Australia.

She offers a strong combination of requirements management, model-based systems engineering (MBSE), configuration management and verification and validation capability, underpinned by a civil engineering background that gives her a broad understanding of rail systems and infrastructure from design through to delivery.

Frances is highly proficient in IBM DOORS, DOORS Next and DXL scripting, and has developed automation tools — including an Acmena DXL script library and Power BI dashboards linked to DOORS data — that have measurably reduced review time and improved visibility of V&V and assurance progress across project teams. She is also experienced in Vitech Genesys for systems architecture development, having managed functional, physical and logical architecture for a major digital rail program, and has applied MBSE to support the development of operational and maintenance concepts across complex, multi-tranche delivery environments.

Currently providing V&V support for the Cross River Rail – Rail, Systems and Integration package, Frances’ project experience spans some of Australia’s most significant rail investment programs. On the TfNSW Digital Systems Program she managed business, system and sub-system requirements specifications in DOORS Next, developed project architecture across two tranches, maintained configuration baselines and conducted configuration audits at test gates.

Frances served as Requirements Manager on the Sydney Metro project for the City and Southwest line, automating recurring change management tasks using DOORS DXL, VBA and Power Query. On the Queensland Train Manufacturing Program, she led requirements definition and decomposition for rollingstock delivery, authored interface-derived requirements for multiple sub-systems, and automated Verification Traceability Matrices that reduced review time by 40 per cent. She has also provided systems assurance, requirements management and V&V support on Cross River Rail and contributed MBSE support to the Melbourne Airport Rail Link corridor package.

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Specialises in:

  • Systems Engineering
  • Model-Based Systems Engineering
  • Requirements Management

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