Advanced Systems Engineering Research Articles

Exploring the Potentials of Advanced Systems Engineering and Frugal Innovation for Sustainable Product Development in German industry

Advanced Systems Engineering (ASE) is a new paradigm that approaches engineering practices for future market solutions. Frugal Innovation (FI) represents a promising concept that focuses on sustainable solutions with limited resources. According to the authors, frugal innovation may have a significant impact on sustainable product development but lacks engineering approaches for the systematic development of frugal products. Exploring the links between ASE and FI could help to identify suitable fields of application to ensure sustainable product development. The analysis is based on a comprehensive study on frugal innovation in German mechanical and plant engineering that was recently conducted by the authors. Therefore, this paper explores potential patterns to integrate Advanced Systems Engineering for the development of frugal innovations based on findings from the German mechanical and plant engineering sector.

Linking Product Development’s and Society’s View on Sustainability to Enhance the Contextual Derivation and Validation of Requirements

The consideration of sustainable aspects in product development is becoming increasingly important but is a challenging task due to complexity, blurred boundaries, and dynamic events in context. While many approaches already take sustainability aspects into account, there is a lack of holistic approaches that consider the role of the individual and bring together the goals of product development and society. In this approach, a holistic connection between the view of product development and society’s view of sustainability was created via a framework that combines the HTO analysis and the SDGs. It thus creates a translation from which requirements can be derived and validated of the decomposition and decryption of black boxes, considering dynamic changes in the context. This promotes the gain of knowledge by product developers during the early phase of the development process. Further investigations will be made to concretize this holistic approach through suitable development methods such as Advanced Systems Engineering (ASE).

Advanced Systems Engineering Assessment/Advanced Systems Engineering Assessment – Individually configuring and introducing ASE in industry

Advanced Systems Engineering Assessment/Advanced Systems Engineering Assessment – Individually configuring and introducing ASE in industry

A COMPETENCE PORTFOLIO FOR FUTURE LEADERS IN ADVANCED SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

AbstractDue to the increasing importance of advanced systems, whose development calls for interdisciplinary and integrative approaches, and fundamental changes in the work environment, leaders are required to have a wide range of competences. Therefore, the aim of this work is to identify competences of future leaders, that are specifically relevant in Advanced Systems Engineering (ASE). Thus, professional, social, methodological, and self competences developed by a literature review are validated through expert interviews and prioritized by a survey. The insights are then presented in a competence portfolio including 30 areas of competences. The portfolio consists of areas of competence that are either relevant in the context of ASE (e.g. intercultural and interdisciplinary competence), New Work (e.g. competence to empower employees) or are relevant to leaders in general. It was possible to add further aspects that are necessary in ASE to the aspects from the literature review. The experts interviewed emphasized various aspects of interdisciplinary work and made clear that in future, leaders should place their employees at the heart of their activities and empower them according to their strengths and weaknesses.

Approach of simulation data management for the application of the digital simulation twin

Advanced Systems Engineering combines physical products and digital services and models at an early stage of the product development process. Therefore, more and more sensors cover functional and service assurance of a physical product. The representation of the sensor network enables the efficient archiving, management and processing of sensor data with available simulation models and higher semantics of the sensor data. For this purpose, we defined requirements for the sensor network and designed a conceptual framework. The implementation focuses on the transmission, archiving and processing of the sensor data as an input deck for further simulations.

Beyond Model-Based Systems Engineering towards Managing Complexity

Abstract Systems Engineering domain lacks in methodologies for integration of development artefacts (e.g. requirements, functions, geometrics, or behavior) and enterprise models (e.g. organizational structures, processes, or IT infrastructure). Especially the rising complexity driven by integrated product service systems, smart services, systems of systems and cyber physical systems (CPS) leads to a new paradigm further on called Advanced Systems Engineering (ASE). It empowers enterprises to cope with such complex developments. The employment of ASE technologies in design and manufacturing enterprises requires a reachability of technical information and continuity along vertical and horizontal dimensions. A widely used approach to implement this is Model-based System Engineering (MBSE). This paper introduces a solution to achieve the goals of manufacturing excellence as well as complexity management by identifying and analyzing relevant requirements and possible approaches for an innovative simulation enabling and executable modelling language, the so-called advanced MBSE+.

Overcoming Challenges on an International Project to Advance Systems Engineering

ABSTRACTThe Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering (BKCASE) project's dual product development cycle spanned a three‐year period from the September 2009 to December, 2012. During this timeframe, BKCASE authors met quarterly at various locations, primarily in various regions of the United States, but also in Stockholm, Sweden; Toulouse, France; London, England; and Rome, Italy (BKCASE, 2009–2019). The team successfully worked through challenges and differences to produce The Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) wiki and a Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE) publication. This article is a collection of personal stories from the team members that focus on overcoming obstacles to successfully produce the final published products.

Special Issue on Advanced Computational Methods, Systems, and Industrial Engineering Applications

Special Issue on Advanced Computational Methods, Systems, and Industrial Engineering Applications

Fabrication and characterization of metal stent coating with drug-loaded nanofiber film for gallstone dissolution.

Stent insertion and chemical agents of ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid and sodium cholate for dissolving common bile duct stone diseases through extra biliary tract infusion have been believed a relatively effective therapeutics for the clinical symptom. Core-shell nanofibers produced by co-axial electrospinning to deliver chemical drugs, biomacromolecules, genes and even cells have been reported for various advanced drug delivery system and tissue engineering applications. In the present study, poly (lactide-co-ɛ-caprolactone) (PLCL) core-shell nanofiber-coated film of stent, loaded with ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid and sodium cholate in core layer, was fabricated by co-axial electrospinning for treating gallstone disease. Image of laser scanning confocal microscopy and transmission electron microscopy demonstrated core-shell structure of drug-loaded nanofiber. Fourier transform infrared spectra and the thermogravimetric analysis proved ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid and sodium cholate to be successfully loaded in nanofibers. Morphology of nanofibers after a period of degradation still keeps good shape. Drugs can continuously release for around five days, which was proved significant effectiveness for dissolving gallstone. Besides, unobvious cytotoxicity was exhibited from MTT results and cell kept good morphology in vitro research. The present coated stent showed a bright prospect for dissolving the biliary stone.

Risk Assessment and Management (RAM) in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) by advanced system Engineering theory

An ambitious task is to conduct a project related to enterprise resource planning (ERP). In any of the ERP business enterprises, the technological, psychosomatic and sociological characteristics are included. Managing such characteristics in any enterprises is high complex. The ERP as such categorised on the basis of implementation, software, supply chain management, resources, management and optimisation. These characteristics are high risk to handle. The system still seems to be a growing system that has to be moulded into many forms. The aim of this manuscript is to present a risk assessment and management (RAM) in ERP by advanced system engineering theory.

An Object-oriented and Executable SysML Framework for Rapid Model Development

This paper introduces Cortex, a new framework to develop object-oriented and executable SysML models using the IPython Notebook4. The framework strives to create a succinct and intuitive Python programming interface for SysML models, and integrate it with OpenMDAO (a Multi-disciplinary Design, Analysis and Optimization framework being developed by NASA Glenn Research Center). Data persists in MongoDB, with a Resource Description Framework (RDF) cache for semantic querying. The models can be exposed to custom web-based applications through a Representational State Transfer (REST) interface. The authors strive to create a foundational framework on which to be able to build more advanced system engineering and decision support tools. All the tools and libraries leveraged in this effort are open source software (OSS), and whenever possible, the authors selected technologies with the most permissive licenses.

Themed Project Case Study: Quadruple Tanks Control with PLCs

A themed project based on the control of a quadruple tank rig using PLCs has been successfully carried out as part of the MSc in Advanced Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Manchester. The themed project involves ten students who address a single multivariable control challenge under the supervision of two academics and four PhD students. As every student is required to write their own MSc dissertation, the key point is the possibility of using different control techniques to be implemented on different hardware platforms.

8.2.1 Integrating System Models around Decisions

AbstractDecisions are the primary future‐creating human thinking process. Every system or product in existence today is the direct result of a network of interdependent decisions that have been framed, analyzed, made and implemented. As such, a decision model is ideally suited to serve as the integrative framework for Systems Engineering knowledge, processes and practitioners.The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Command (TARDEC) has developed an Advanced Systems Engineering Capability (ASEC) framework that leverages a decision model as the integrative mechanism to provide the context for all other system models. These models, known collectively as the “5‐M Model” of integrated systems knowledge, include: SE Process (Vee) model Math/Physics models Lifecycle models Architecture models (e.g. SysML) Roadmap models This paper will describe the relationships between these models as implemented within the ASEC framework. The role of each model in informing decisions to improve decision confidence, speed, quality, leverage and implementation will be explained. A metrics strategy to confirm these benefits will be proposed.

Clarifying the Context of SE for the SEBoK

AbstractThe Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) (Pyster and Olwell 2012) (see http://www.sebokwiki.org) portion of the Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering (BKCASE) project (see http://www.bkcase.org) involved three years of extensive and intensive discussions among its 70 authors and over‐200 external reviewers worldwide. These helped the SEBoK effort better understand the implications of various candidate definitions of systems engineering (SE)‐related terms and to shape the resulting SEBoK content. This paper focuses on the resulting clarification of four key aspects of SE: (1) What is the historical context of SE? (2) What is the system boundary of SE? (3) Who are SE's users? and (4) What are the relations among SE and other disciplines?

Suppression of Fault Currents on DG Using Various Fault Current Limiters in Distribution Network

Protection of Distributed Generation (DG) is a challenging task in entire electrical family. DG plays a vital role in advanced power systems engineering. The connection of DG to the distribution network has numerous advantages. Even though it has a advantages, while connecting the DG with existing power system network, the fault current level in many places have often exceeded which causes the abnormal conditions in the entire power system network. In order to reduce the fault current level, various Fault Current Limiters (FCL) are proposed. In this paper hybrid Fault Current Limiter (HFCL) and its applications are proposed to minimize the effect of the DG on the distribution protection system in a radial system during a fault. The simulated results are analysed and compared with a Solid State Fault Current Limiter (SSFCL) and Superconducting Fault Current Limiter (SFCL) using MATLAB simulation. The effectiveness of proposed fault current limiters are determined and examined in the test system.

Effect of Varying Aspect Ratio on Relative Stability for Graphene Nanoribbon Interconnects

Achieving dense off-chip interconnection with satisfactory electrical performance is emerging as a major challenge in advanced system engineering. Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) have been recently proposed as one of the potential candidate materials for both transistors and interconnect. In addition, development is still underway for alternative materials and processes for high aspect ratio (AR) contacts. Studding the effect of varying aspect ratio on relative stability of graphene nanoribbon interconnects is an important viewpoint in performance evaluation of system. In this paper, Nyquist stability analysis based on transmission line modeling (TLM) for GNR interconnects is investigated. In this analysis, the dependence of the degree of relative stability for multilayer GNR (MLGNR) interconnects on the aspect ratio has been acquired. It is shown that, with increasing the aspect ratio of each ribbon, MLGNR interconnects become more unstable.

6.1.1 Applying Systems Thinking via Systemigrams™ for Defining the Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering (BKCASE) Project

AbstractSystems thinking is commonly accepted as the backbone of a successful systems engineering approach. As such, the Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering (BKCASE) team chose to leverage a systems thinking based tool, called Systemitool, to describe our project to the vast audience that would potentially become involved directly or indirectly in the success of the project. This paper describes the process and steps used by the authors and the BKCASE team to develop the project's systemic diagram, or Systemigram™, and the story behind the project, the products, and the vision of the BKCASE project. The goal of the paper is to provide guidance so that readers can leverage the lessons learned from this effort to successfully develop their own project definitions and stories.

Announcing BKCASE: Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering

Announcing BKCASE: Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering

7.5.4 Improving the Systems Engineering Process At Israel Aircraft Industries ‐ A Case Study

AbstractThis paper describes Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) efforts in improving the systems engineering process. To put the subject in its right perspective, the paper provides some background information about IAI and its engineering culture. The paper describes the Advanced Systems and Software Engineering Technology (ASSET) program, which started in 1992. The paper describes a company‐wide effort to improve systems engineering processes in four important areas: Manage and plan systems engineering. Adopt systems engineering database tools. Improved Systems Testing. Train Systems Engineers.The paper concludes by citing our lessons learned. The participation of personnel from both headquarter and divisions, the concentration of improvements in the most critical areas, the importance of the Systems Engineering Management Process Group (SEMPG) and the usage of pilot projects as a dissemination vehicle for concepts and methodologies.

ADVANCED SYSTEM ENGINEERING AUTOMATION (ASEA)

AbstractThis technical paper provides an overview of Rome Laboratory's Research & Development Program in the area of System Engineering. In particular, it describes the results of an exploratory development effort which specified the system level requirements and operational concept for system engineering automation known as Catalyst, and focuses on an advanced development effort entitled “Advanced System Engineering Automation (ASEA)” which is implementing the automation concept.