The Use of MBSE in Infrastructure Projects ‐‐ An MBSE Challenge Team Paper

Abstract

AbstractLarge infrastructure projects are complex, difficult and expensive. They are found in the transportation, energy, and communications sectors. These include projects for aerospace, and construction of public works and utilities, airports, sea ports, rail, highways and bridges, among others. They are subject to the requirements of a multitude of stakeholders, take many years to build, are often influenced by politics, and can lack focus or involve scope creep. They are also subject to laws and regulations, operational concepts, site conditions, external interfaces and utilities, industrial codes and standards, operator needs, the public interest and other influences. Projects often suffer several types of problems caused by inadequately determining, engineering and managing requirements. For example, contractual and regulatory commitments can be overlooked. Requirements do not flow down to subcontractors or suppliers. Requirements are incomplete, unclear and subject to widely varying interpretations. Projects have difficulty demonstrating requirements were met. Examples of projects where virtually all of these problems occurred include the Millennium Dome in the UK which was bankrupt shortly after opening (Projects, 2012), and the Freedom Tower (New World Trade Center) in New York City (Time, 2005). Solving these and other issues drive the need for more formal approach to managing these projects. There is a significant advantage to be gained by the adoption of systems engineering methods within the remainder of the infrastructure sectors. The INCOSE Infrastructure Working Group was formed to demonstrate how systems engineering can assist with infrastructure projects. As a part of that effort, we have created a drawbridge model to demonstrate how Model‐Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) can assist engineers in defining clear requirements, defining scope, demonstrating regulatory compliance, identifying stakeholders, etc. It uses the Unified Profile for DoDAF and MODAF (UPDM) and the Systems Modeling Language (SysML). This paper will describe the model and demonstrate how the different aspects of MBSE help infrastructure projects. The model contains close to 100 diagrams and reports, so size constraints of the paper mean that only selected parts of the model can be described. For the complete model, visit the IWG area of the INCOSE website. http://www.incose.org/practice/techactivities/wg/infrastructure/