Esmée Bertens

Systems thinker and
experienced Systems Engineering consultant at Synergio.

Growing Systems Engineering Capability Through
Collaborative SEP Certification: Lessons from the INCOSE NL Cohort

Bio.

Bio: Esmée Bertens wants to bring Systems Engineering back to what it was originally meant for: helping people develop the best possible products together. Not through more paperwork, but through better decisions, stronger collaboration, and a clear understanding of what truly adds value.”
Esmée is a systems thinker and experienced Systems Engineering consultant at Synergio. With extensive experience in the energy sector, she has worked as a systems engineer for transmission and distribution operators including TenneT, Stedin, and Alliander. She helps organizations successfully apply Systems Engineering in the development, standardization, and realization of critical infrastructure.
Her strength lies in connecting people, departments, and disciplines. Esmée translates Systems Engineering principles into practical ways of working, aligns requirements, design, and verification, and helps teams work iteratively while reducing waste in product development. For her, the methodology is never the goal itself; the ultimate objective is creating better products that meet the needs of users and stakeholders.
In addition to the energy sector, she has gained experience at organizations such as ProRail and VDL. As an enthusiastic sailor, Esmée sees change as an adventure: setting a course together, continuously learning, and adjusting when needed. She brings this mindset to her work, helping organizations turn complex challenges into valuable results.

Abstract.

Infrastructure and energy can no longer be renewed project by project. Rijkswaterstaat needs to replace roughly one bridge a week and is moving from bespoke design to standard building blocks. TenneT is replacing more than 140 high-voltage substations using a standardized, modular concept. Alliander has set up a dedicated Modular Construction department to develop and manage building blocks for its grid expansion. Stedin is building a series of 250 substations on a fixed design, and the Central Government Real Estate Agency specifies its offices with a standard “Ruimteboek” and buys standardized, factory-built accommodations for Defense. Without standardization, this work simply cannot be done. So, organizations are investing heavily in standard requirements, libraries, building blocks and tooling. The return of investment lags behind. Making standards turns out to be something quite different from working with them. What we see in practice: the library is filled, yet projects still make their own versions. A building block gets approved, and the deviations pile up anyway. A standard is only worth as much as the organization’s ability to apply, manage and improve it. In this talk we present our growth model for standardization: from project, to product, to platform. Standards usually start as something each project makes for itself. The next step is to manage them as products, with an owner and a life cycle. The last step is a platform that client and contractors build on together. Based on our work in the Dutch energy sector, we show what each step asks of Systems Engineering and of the organization around it. The payoff is delivery capacity: more work done with the same scarce people, and fewer surprises along the way. The contractors and suppliers around it gain just as much. The question for your organization is: are you making standards, or are you learning to work with them?