Model-based Systems Engineering of Discrete Production Lines Using SysML: An Experience Report

Abstract

During the design of complex mechatronic systems, multiple engineering teams covering disciplines such as mechanics, electronics, control and safety must cooperate and exchange information.Today's state-of-the-practice systems engineering methodologies rely on document-based approaches to elicit and manage requirements, describe the system architecture, log design decisions and exchange this information between the project members. Unfortunately, the informal character of the documents causes misinterpretations, generates inconsistencies and prohibits the use of computer power for validation.Model-based Systems Engineering techniques promise to alleviate some of these issues. SysML is a formal graphical modeling language that aims to support this model-based design of complex multidisciplinary systems. Yet, as SysML is a general-purpose language intended to cover a broad range of systems, applying SysML to a specific domain such as production lines is not a trivial task.In this paper, we present some experiences and limitations encountered when applying and tailoring SysML 1.4 to support the systems engineering process of an industrial use case: the design of a production line by a multi-disciplinary team across several companies, consisting of process experts, control engineers, thermal designers, software engineers, mechanical designers, signal processing experts, roboticists and embedded hardware designers.