AbstractThis paper forms a part of the Engineering Doctorate (EngD) project sponsored by EPSRC and Thales UK. The aim of this project is to design a knowledge management system (KMS) to be applied in a complex engineering environment in the military electronics domain, by identifying and addressing issues in the sponsor organisation, Thales UK. This paper discusses the systems engineering approach taken during the requirement analysis phase and describes the key issues emerging which will impact on the design of the KMS. After giving a brief introduction of the project and methodology used in the project, the paper presents a creation of a theoretical baseline built to understand the questions involved in creating KMS (section 3), an investigation carried out in the company environment to explore existing KM issues (Section 4 and 5), and a dual case study approach undertaken to further investigate KM (section 6). The paper is concluded by summarising the key achievements of the research and outlining the approach for future steps for formal requirement generation.