Building delivery capability across disciplines as research scales to product
Case study
Practical Systems Engineering training workshops for complex, multidisciplinary R&D
Engagement summary
The challenge
AdvanCell’s transition from world-class research into scaled operations and product delivery increased the need for cross-disciplinary integration and structured coordination across scientific and engineering teams.
Our approach
A focused workshop series delivered across the R&D team, developing practical systems thinking and a shared technical language to support integrated, Agile delivery and effective management of risk and change.
Outcomes
A shared technical language and systems approach that broke down silos across science, engineering, and commercial teams, reducing risk through integrated working and enabling successful delivery of subsequent product iterations.
“Navitect’s workshops were a catalyst for our team, bringing pace, focus, and a practical systems mindset that broke down silos and transformed how we work together.”
Thien Dinh, Director of Engineering, AdvanCell
The challenge: integrating complex science into product delivery
AdvanCell is a clinical-stage radiopharmaceutical company operating at the intersection of advanced science, engineering, and regulated product development.
As the organisation scaled from research into product delivery and operational execution, the nature of the work began to change. Scientific exploration increasingly needed to be integrated with engineering decisions, delivery constraints, and regulatory expectations, placing greater demands on cross-disciplinary coordination and more structured ways of working.
In practice, this manifested as:
Requirements evolving in an ad-hoc and sometimes contradictory way
Misalignment between scientific intent, engineering decisions, and delivery priorities
Interfaces between disciplines being poorly defined or implicit
Rework and schedule impact as issues surfaced late
While individual capability across science, engineering, and delivery functions was strong, the organisation lacked a shared systems structure and technical language to integrate work effectively. This made it difficult to manage trade-offs, maintain coherence, and control complexity as products matured and delivery pressure increased.
Our approach: practical Systems Engineering training
Navitect delivered a series of hands-on workshops to the entire R&D team, focused on the lightweight, practical application of Systems Engineering in day-to-day product development work.
The workshops established a shared technical language and approach for:
Capturing product functional and performance requirements effectively
Defining a coherent system architecture, including system modules and clear interfaces
Integrating design, build testing, and learning continuously across the lifecycle, enabling evidence-based decision making
Capturing and baselining technical data pragmatically (low documentation) and conducting objective design reviews as the design matured
Managing engineering change in a highly uncertain and fast-moving development environment
Rather than introducing new process layers, the approach focused on giving teams a common structure for how work was defined, integrated, reviewed, and evolved. This allowed Systems Engineering to be applied in an Agile context without slowing teams down or increasing documentation burden.
The core outcome of the workshops was a shared way of thinking and working. Scientists, engineers, and commercial stakeholders developed a common understanding of system boundaries, interfaces, assumptions, and change management, enabling them to reason about complexity together and work as a single, integrated delivery team rather than in parallel silos.
Outcome: coherent cross-disciplinary delivery
The workshops established a shared way of thinking and working across the R&D team. This shared technical language enabled teams to move beyond siloed working and operate as an efficient, integrated delivery team.
As a result of the workshops, the R&D team improved their approach to:
Modelling system function to elicit and evolve requirements as designs matured
Defining system architecture and interfaces to enable parallel development and controlled integration of modules
Applying continuous integration, testing, and learning across the product lifecycle
Identifying and managing technical risk early and deliberately
Preventing rework by addressing integration issues and test failures earlier
Delivering subsequent product iterations on time and within budget
All participants reported gaining practical tools they could apply directly in their day-to-day work, with 100 percent rating the sessions as ‘highly valuable’.
This engagement demonstrates how Navitect’s Systems Engineering training can strengthen delivery capability in complex product development environments. A shared technical structure and language enable earlier alignment and risk visibility as work scales.