Advancing Cross-Organizational Collaboration in Aircraft Development

Abstract

Collaboration is a key enabler for the development of modern aircraft and its systems and components. Because of the highly complex and integrated nature of many aircraft systems, effective collaboration requires well-organized, multi-disciplinary, multi-engineer, and multiorganization development processes. These processes require data-driven and computersupported tools and methodologies. Collaboration may seem as simple as working together, thereby adopting standards and tools, and freely sharing data, information, and knowledge. However, in the development of complex systems such as aircraft, collaboration is not that straightforward. For example, aircraft engineers across disciplines and organizations commonly face challenges such as firewalls, data and tool heterogeneity, and intellectual property protection. In this paper, we review the collaboration challenges, describe how the EU-funded research project AGILE 4.0 addresses these challenges, and detail the application of, and experiences with, AGILE 4.0's collaboration-enabling technologies.

Collaborative Design of a Business Jet Family Using the AGILE 4.0 MBSE Environment

“…To run a Design of Experiments (DOE) or optimization and enable traceability all across the design process, the architecture design space model must be connected with the MDAO workflow. This is done using a tool called MultiLinQ [10], developed by the DLR and available in the collaborative MBSE environment [29]. MultiLinQ takes analysis tool input/output definitions, as available from the MDAx workflow model, and information about components and associated QOIs in the architecture design space.…”

“…This enables the coupling between architecture model and QOI, so that each generated architecture can be analyzed using the MDAO workflow and output metrics are fully traceable. For more details on how MultiLinQ is integrated in the collaborative MBSE environment and how it can be used to connect ADORE and RCE during an optimization run, the reader is referred to [29].…”

An MBSE architectural framework for the agile definition of complex system architectures

“…In the context of the AGILE 4.0 project, the guidelines proposed in this paper for the system architecting have been implemented in the so-called Operational Collaborative Environment (OCE), which integrates several tools developed by the partners of the project Consortium to support all the development activities of the Systems Engineering Product Development process set up in AGILE 4.0 for the collaborative development of complex aeronautical systems. More details about the technologies integrated in the OCE can be found in [31].…”

Bringing Manufacturing into the MDO domain using MBSE

“…In this application case these tools and methodologies were used to make the models required to define and solve the problem of finding the best flap design for a regional jet. The tool set is made available through the OCE (Operational Collaborative Environment [18]). The OCE is available through a web portal via which all tools can be accessed and used.…”

“…It has to be noted that the tools that are run are located in different companies and on different computers. To enable a seamless workflow to be run it uses a software tool called Brics [18]. This tool ensures that data files are downloaded from and uploaded to a server and it ensures the tools are started at the right time with the right data.…”