Towards Industrial Integration of MBSE into PLM for Mission‐Critical Systems

Abstract

Model‐Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is a natural choice for engineering complex systems of systems that involve hardware and software components, deal with a huge number of heterogeneous requirements, and require solid verification and validation at multiple levels. However, industrial MBSE adoption requires solving multiple problems. Most of them originate when MBSE is incorporated into the production environment. For enterprise‐level industrial solutions, this means integration into the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tool chain. This integration covers requirements, product line, variability, design, simulation, BOM, configuration, version, and CAD drawings management. The problem is that there is no clear path for integration. Due to the various types of data that can be interchanged between PLM and MBSE, the existing integration solutions are patchy and driven by clients use cases only. There is not enough information about recommended MBSE – PLM integration practices, use cases, and methods. This is a huge problem in the context of large‐scale partnerships working on mission‐critical systems, where engineering data has to be processed and managed in the most consistent way so as to be used by all the partners and through the different PLM activities. In this paper we will overview real‐world PLM and MBSE integration cases from our company experience. We will map a path toward the right solution, and will dive deep into the practical side of Product Line Engineering (PLE) and MBSE integration.

Systematic Literature Review of MBSE Tool-Chains

“…Traceability refers to the ability through which an element is associated with other related elements, such as verification models that are traced to the related requirements in MBSE tool-chains. Traceability can be used to implement project and process management and to support automation; for instance, Pavalkis et al provided the integrated platform for the life-cycle process management of MBSE and PLM data with traceability management [39]. Moreover, traceability enables the management of requirements; for example, a recursive hierarchy was used in a requirements management system to make the system traceable from decision-making to its success criteria [40].…”

A Model‐Based V&V Test Strategy Based on Emerging System Modeling Techniques

“…(Pfenning 2017) is an extension of RFLP that includes test cases. The concept is further elaborated by (Pavalkis 2016) to describe the interconnections of cross-domain metamodels, including those in SysML, PLM, CAD, computational models, as well as software source code.…”

Implementing a Model‐Based, Digital Engineering Enterprise for a Defense Systems Integrator – an Ongoing Journey

“…While there has been a keen focus on SysML-based architecture and design in the early part of system life cycle (on the upper-left hand side of the System V), industry leaders are rapidly expanding the practice to other parts of the life cycle particularly in system test and evaluation (Biggs, et al, 2019), and system support and sustainment (Mace, et al, 2019). In the physical design space, integrating MBSE with product lifecycle management (PLM) and application lifecycle management (ALM) is a challenging technical problem facing engineering tool vendors (Pavalkis 2016), while some organizations still endeavor to transition from 2D drawing to 3D modeling (Muller 2019). Peterson addresses the factors that influence such endeavors including obstacles, enablers, and INCOSE resources aligned with accelerating the transformation of systems engineering to a model-based discipline (Peterson 2019).…”