Tool Integration and Model Lifecycle Management Working Group

Mission & Objectives

The Tool Integration and Model Lifecyle Management WG provides a forum for discussion and information dissemination on best practices, methods and processes that promote the development, validation and deployment of standards to advance data exchange capability of digital data created during a product development lifecycle.

• To characterize systems engineering tool integration and interoperability requirements.
• To specify requirements and assess solutions for model life cycle management and data exchange.
• To provide forums for discussion and information dissemination regarding tool integration, process implementation and effectiveness of data exchange standards.
• To promote the development, validation and deployment of standards that advance the interoperability of systems engineering tool sets.
• To address model lifecycle management concerns and to establish scenarios and best practices that address the needs of the community.
• To determine efficient modeling structures to use including the repository, the models, and data within the models.  

Leadership

Working Group Chair: John Nallon 
Working Group Co-chair: Mark Williams 
Working Group Co-chair: Robert Malone
 
TIMLM WG Projects:
      A.  Model Lifecycle Management: Co-Chair Leadership Opening. Objectives: To address model lifecycle management concerns and establish scenarios and best practices that address the concerns of the community. Includes support for the LOTAR for MBSE standards development project.
     B.  MBSE for PDES: Co-Chair: Mark Williams, Chair of MBSE for PDES WG ; PDES Inc.; Objectives: Identify the MBSE and System Architecture deliverables that should be preserved in long term storage and define the applicable standards for the data representations and data exchange.
     C.   Long Term Archival and Retrieval (LOTAR) for MBSE: Peter Schroll, Chair LOTAR WG; LOTAR Consortium including PDES Inc.
     D. Model Portfolio Management Guide: Project Leader - Misak Zetilyan (Aero.org); Objective: to define the scope, purpose, tasks and products of model portfolio management for Model Based Engineering. 
     

Working Group Products

In collaboration with PDES Inc. the DEIX Working Group and the MBSE Initiative; the TIMLM WG participates in the application, analysis and development of data exchange standards to modernize the integration and interoperability of systems engineering tools and processes.

The TIMLM WG members work with numerous vendors, standards groups and professional organizations to constantly improve tool data exchange capabilities and the management of models throughout the lifecycle of a product.

Historical Working Group Products: (available on the MBSE Wiki and INCOSE CONNECT site)

INCOSE International Workshop Presentations, Panels and Workshop artifacts can be found on the TIMLM WG Technical Library on CONNECT and on the  MBSE Wiki.
- IW2019 : The MoSSEC (AP243) ISO Standard (on CONNECT and the MoSSEC project site)
- IW2021 : Where is your Roadmap for Implementing MBSE Data Standards? (MBSE Wiki)

International Symposium Papers/Panels/Tutorials
- IS2014 : Model Lifecycle Management for MBSE (Lonnie VanZandt)
- IS2014 : Do Systems Engineers Have a Tool/Standards Infrastructure that Enables Easy Access to the Information They Require? (Panel: Dr. Julian Johnson)
- IS2016 : Crafting a Collaboration Space for the Conceptualization of a Collaborative Engineering Service for the Management of Modeled Engineering Artifacts Throughout Their  Enterprise Lifecycle. (Paper: Lonnie VanZandt)
- IS2017 : Be It Resolved: You are Wasting Time. You Need Better Systems for Model Management and Collaboration; also, Cultural Change Would Help. (Panel: Lonnie VanZandt)

Applicable Data Exchange Standards and Language Activities:

- ISO 10303 - AP233 : Systems Engineering Data Exchange
- ISO 10303 - AP239 : Product Lifecycle Support
- ISO 10303 - AP242 : Managed Model Based 3D Engineering
- ISO 10303 - AP243 : MoSSeC (Modeling and Simulation information in a Collaborative Systems Engineering Context) : The globalization of the aerospace and defense industries is driving large volumes of work for modelling and simulation of product performance and behavior, into geographically distributed teams and into the supply chain. The modelling and simulation technical data is used to justify change decisions and to validate the product throughout development, certification and in-service. There are already mature standards for exchange of the modelling and simulation technical data, but these either do not include traceability to the systems engineering and product data management context, or are inefficient for data sharing. This context information can be summarized as “who”, “what”, “where”, “when”, “how”, “why”, and the goal of the MoSSEC project is to provide the standard for sharing this information. The MoSSEC project will be agnostic of the type of modelling and simulation, and it is the intention that the modelling and simulation data will continue to be exchanged with the technical standards in use today (e.g. AP209, AP210, AP242, FMI). This standard was released by ISO in January 2022 as part of the ISO suite of STEP standards and is available for download from their website.

- LOTAR ( Long Term Archival and Retrevial ) : To realistically reduce the cost of developing new products the Systems Engineering community must evolve from our document based paradigm and embrace Model Based Engineering.  The foundation of this evolution is MBSE.  But the slow implementation of MBSE is an industry problem that relies on data standards, defining WHAT must be exchanged, HOW to exchange, data interoperability and preservation.  We also need Leadership and a robust source of Vendor products.  Any alternatives must include not just the OEMs, but also the supply base. INCOSE, PDES and LOTAR working groups have started analyzing the shift from a document paradigm to a MBSE paradigm for the LOTAR of product data and the transfer of technical data packages in the supply chain.
 
- SySML (Systems Modeling Language) : Part of the OMG family of standards and is currently under revision (v2). SysML v2 Update Reports are available on our CONNECT Site and the OMG Wiki. INCOSE OMG members are supporting as is the INCOSE OMG Liaison.

INCOSE Standards Department Support:

ISO-IECJTC1-SC7_N8226_ISOIEC_CD_24641: Methods and Tools for Model Based Systems and Software Engineering; Robert Malone ISO Liaison and INCOSE Review Team Lead. This is an emerging standard that just completed a third committee review. The INCOSE review team led by Robert Malone reviewed the latest committee draft and returned their comments about the standard in March 2022.

Planned Working Sessions at the Next Events

• This Tools Integration and Model Lifecycle Management Working Group participates in weekly working sessions with PDES and LOTAR MBSE Working Groups.
• Working sessions are held every year at the International Workshop (Jan/Feb) and the International Symposium (Jun/Jul).
• Weekly working sessions are held for the Model Portfolio Management Guide development.
• All working group members receive schedule and agenda announcements via the working group e-News, and  the event planning details are posted on the working group web-site and in INCOSE CONNECT. INCOSE or Non-INCOSE members with interest in this working group may inquire about activities and questions by contacting John Nallon, TIMLM WG Chair

Planned Presentations at the Next Events

PDES/LOTAR 2022 Quarterly Virtual Workshop
 Tuesday March 15 - Thursday March 17

INCOSE IS 2022 - Detroit, Michigan

• Date:  July 25-30, 2021
• Location: Hybrid
• Venue:  Zoom and On-site
• Website: IS 2022 Website
• Meetings and Presentations:

           To Be Announced as the schedule becomes public in 2022. This will also be a Hybrid event.