TGCC Chapter Meeting October 2016
Systems Engineering Your MBSE Deployment
David Long
Vitech Corporation
Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
Email: dlong@vitechcorp.com
Model-based systems engineering is many things. It is architecture and analytics. It is communication and engineering. It is methods and tools. Fundamentally, it represents a change in technique and fidelity for systems engineering and those who practice it. The one thing that MBSE is not is one size fits all.
As individuals and organizations deploy MBSE, they fall into several traps. Many believe model-based systems engineering to be a tool or technical problem. While there is certainly a technical dimension and selecting the proper tool for the problem and process is key, the adoption of model-based systems engineering is far bigger. It is technology, people, training, and change at an individual, project, and potentially organizational level.
If we practice what we preach and bring a systems engineering approach to deploying MBSE, we can fundamentally change the impact and increase the likelihood of success. Assessing the environment and drawing the system boundary…defining the scope, eliciting requirements, and identifying constraints…considering behaviors and deploying the solution – all are critical to defining the right problem and solving the problem right. All are key in avoiding many of the traps along the way. Building upon good systems engineering practice and practical lessons learned from deployments across industry – some successful, some challenged – we can identify best practices going forward as we continue to apply and advance systems engineering within our organizations.