Systems Engineering Concepts Research Articles

Approach for Linking System Architecture and Business Model based on the Example of Circular Value Propositions

Dynamic and volatile market environments influenced by sustainability and circularity are core topics impacting today’s value creation. They impact business on different levels, ranging from strategy and management to part and production design. In the common systems engineering RFLP-understanding they can be seen as additional requirements to be considered during product development and to be balanced with other requirements derived from stakeholders or regulation. Additionally, circular product design can offer new opportunities for design of business models and strategy on product or company level. This paper presents an approach for coupling of two levels of product related decision making utilizing the concepts of model-based systems engineering. The levels are (1) strategy and business-model related decisions, (2) product architecture including requirements. The presented approach can serve as a support for system architects and business model designers.

Trends in Simulation Technologies for Aircraft Design

The developments in flight simulation since its inception are reviewed and the latest trends in the use of modeling and simulation for design of flying vehicles are presented. Mathematical model based system development is now universally recognized as a cost effective way to bring new design concepts into reality. The efforts made at CSIR-NAL in this regard over the years are also described in brief. The design of systems which require scenario based evaluation like the flight control system and avionics benefit from the use of a reconfigurable simulator developed concurrently with the aircraft. A reconfigurable simulator allows for rapid prototyping of the systems during the design phase in an integrated environment. Ideas for the implementation of Systems Engineering concepts in new and existing aircraft programs using mathematical models are discussed.

Model-Based System Engineering Framework for Superconducting Accelerator Magnet Design

The design specification of future high-field accelerator magnets require innovation in and integration of multiple disciplines. Numerical models underpin each step of the design. In this paper, we present a methodology for collaborative modeling based on relevant concepts of model-based systems engineering. The methodology is composed of three pillars: encapsulated computing environments with service query interface, model notebooks with auto-generated model views, and model query interface with results caching. The methodology aims at a de-centralized approach to multi-model and multi-scale collaboration that maintains the cornerstones of traceability and reproducibility. It is demonstrated with a multi-model coil design optimization of a high-field superconducting magnet.

Systems Engineering Isn't Scary for Agile Practitioners

AbstractTraditional Systems Engineering artifacts and terminology have a negative connotation in some companies and industries that use Agile development. This paper aims to show that the terms and concepts typically associated with traditional systems engineering are not scary for Agile software development. They can, and should, be tailored and utilized during the Agile development process. Many times, terminology and lack of understanding lead to Agile practitioners shying away from what are considered traditional Systems Engineering artifacts such as requirements, architectures designs, documented interfaces, verification, gate reviews, etc. Agile actually already employs many of these artifacts and concepts but simply uses a different terminology when referring to them.This paper helps advance the mindset that traditional Systems Engineering terms, concepts, and artifacts are not something to avoid in Agile by providing alternative ways to describe and think about them in an Agile setting.

Model Based Systems Engineering Concepts and Methodologies for Modeling of Renewable Power Plants

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is the formal application of a model-centered methodology for the design activities of engineered systems, being especially useful to support design requirements verification and validation of complex systems. The complexity of a system can be measured according to the number and relationships of the system elements. The design of renewable power plants has grown in complexity in last few decades, due to the integration of new technologies and the application of grid-code requirements. In this paper, a review of MBSE main concepts and leading methodologies (processes, methods, and tools) will be made with the objective of analyzing its application on the renewable power plants modelling and design. Key words. Model-based systems engineering, renewable power plant, complex system, model, methodology.

An Agile Systems Engineering Process for Stakeholder Needs Identification and Solution Concept Design

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a case study where an agile systems engineering process was used to identify stakeholder needs to design an improved cross‐organizational proposal development process during the proposal formulation phase of a program. The agile systems engineering process leveraged the incremental application of design thinking techniques to engage the stakeholders and identify the care‐abouts of an organization during proposal formulation in support of a change management effort. The goal of the change management effort was to design solutions that increased collaboration and engagement across the various internal and external stakeholders without changing the overarching corporate proposal development process. The identified solutions broke existing organizational silos and changed the dynamics of the organization impacting over 1,200 employees. The case study relates to the future of systems engineering (FuSE) concepts of stakeholder engagement and agility across organizational boundaries.

Factors Influencing Cost Performance Improvement on the Concept Of Green Retrofitting High-Rise Offices Using Structural Equationg Modelling-Part Least Square (SEM-PLS)

The increase in energy consumption in the operation of the building construction industry globally has increased by a percentage of 35%, so that this increase can lead to an increase in carbon emissions which was originally at a percentage of 28% to 38%. The concepts of Green Retrofitting, Dynamic Systems and Value Engineering can be researched based on the influence on improving the cost performance of Green Retrofitting in high-rise (existing) office buildings and connected with the Structural Equation Modelling-Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) analysis model. PLS-SEM is very appropriate to be used in research aimed at developing theories. The results of this study show that in the application of the Green Retrofitting concept in high-rise office buildings using Dynamic Systems and Value Engineering has a significant effect on improving the cost performance of Green Retrofitting and get the most influential factors are Top Management Support, Energy Efficiency, Water Efficiency, Indoor Air Quality, Retrofitting Planning, Retrofitting Initial Costs, Bill Of Quantity, Dynamic System Model Generation, Alternative Material Selection, and Material Cost Reduction

Plug‐and‐Play Adaptive Approach to Integrating Model‐Based Systems Engineering Concepts into Academic Curriculum

AbstractModel‐based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is coveted for improving productivity and product quality. However, adoption is slow because the workforce lacks training. Therefore, a group of MBSE experts at an R‐1 university developed a series of MBSE online learning modules that can be integrated into existing courses. Rather than adding courses to engineering programs, this project presents a “plug‐and‐play” adaptive approach to implementing new topics into existing courses. Faculty can select elements from the modules that best fit their courses and their students' learning needs. To evaluate the effectiveness of the approach and content, parts of the first MBSE module were incorporated in a graduate level engineering course. Surveys and descriptive analysis revealed students' learning experiences and feedback (n = 81). The research findings suggest students had positive experiences with the content and their interest in MBSE increased. Further module design improvement is included and discussed in the paper.

Functionally Interpreting Security

ABSTRACTThe outcomes of an exploration of what security means as an engineered function are presented, based upon principles of secure system design. The exploration was done to support an effort to formalize the syntax and semantics for the expression of security protection needs in system requirements, and to enable alignments with system safety and resilience requirements. The exploration produced a clearer interpretation of the essential aspects of security as postulated by foundational work on secure system design and was cross checked against representative classes of security requirement criteria to confirm accuracy and sufficiency of coverage of key security requirement types. The resultant perspective of what it means to be secure can be useful to inform the development of effective practices for the design of secure systems that are aligned with Future of Systems Engineering (FuSE) concepts, particularly security as a functional requirement. Further, the perspective helps to distinguish those characteristics of security (loss of “anything”) that are in common, and that contrast, with safety (loss of “specific things”) and resilience (loss of “capability”).

ТЕОРИЯ СИСТЕМ И СИСТЕМОТЕХНИКА КАК СОВРЕМЕННЫЙ ПРИКЛАДНЫЕ ИНСТРУМЕНТЫ СИСТЕМНОГО АНАЛИЗА

The process, which includes fundamental research at the initial stage and production and use as the final stages, is combined into the design of a complex system. System engineering has become a new element in this case, trying to reduce the time gap between scientific discovery and its application, as well as between the emergence of human needs and the creation of new systems designed to meet these needs. The purpose of this study is to study the concept of system engineering, as well as its features, tasks, goals. Currently, the issue of system engineering as a method of designing and analyzing complex systems is also very relevant, which allows us to study the theoretical foundations of system engineering, its essence and structure and analyze the presentation of system engineering as a method of designing complex systems.

Using MBSE for the Enhancement of Consistency and Continuity in Modular Product-Service-System Architectures

Within emerging markets, ensuring the competitiveness of manufacturing companies is crucial to their success. The integration of new business possibilities, such as Product-Service-Systems (PSS) can provide one suitable solution. Especially within the architecture development process, large amounts of interconnected data and data types need to be processed and versioned. This leads to a significant lack of data consistency and continuity along the development process of modular PSS architectures. This lack of consistency and continuity leads to a process being prone to errors, representing a significant negative impact onto the company’s value-added stream. We provide one possible solution to these issues by presenting a PSS architecture modularization approach based upon the modularization methods of the Integrated PKT-Approach. Using concepts of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) for modelling these architectures, automated and dynamic analyses of the architecture for the iteration and harmonization of the PSS architecture under development are enabled. The at first generically described approach is further detailed in the second part of this contribution by applying it to an industry case study for mobile laser welding systems. As a result, a clear support for the visualization of architecture iteration aspects as well as for the enhancement of data consistency and continuity is given.

Synergizing model‐based systems engineering, modularity, and software container concepts to manage obsolescence

AbstractCosts to replace obsolete parts are estimated to exceed $10 billion annually for military expenditures.1 Other industries experience high costs related to obsolete parts as well.2–5 Synergies between Model‐Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and modular design concepts should be leveraged to reduce those costs early in the design process. To date, obsolescence management, MBSE, and modularity have been studied, advanced, and presented in a mostly disjunct manner. Consequently, work to synergize these areas specifically to mitigate obsolescence impacts is lacking. The research presented herein illuminates that the untapped synergy at the nexus of obsolescence management, MBSE, and modular design can be leveraged to enhance strategic management of obsolescence. Borrowing from the modular software engineering “container” concept6, the MBSE container modeling approach presented provides systems engineers, architects, and designers with a novel method to influence the system design by minimizing the number of system modules affected by obsolescence. By applying this model‐based strategic obsolescence management approach early in the system architecting and design stages, system engineering teams can reduce the associated complexity, lifecycle costs, and risk of obsolete parts replacement.

Electronic distiller to improve learning processes in natural science laboratories

With the continuous advance of technology, new challenges arise in the face of innovative learning models and their theoretical-practical representation, in which we seek to strengthen effective teaching methods and maximize academic and experiential performance. Therefore, this article describes the development of an electronic distiller for basic natural science laboratories as a result of the research process, which allows teachers and students to perform experimental practices by means of simple distillation. The team developed, involves the concepts of Electronic and Systems Engineering, to improve the efficiency of the simple distillation process, solving needs in terms of assembly time and resource utilization, and optimizing the learning experience. This allows for automatic control of the boiling point of the substances and the quantity of grams to be distilled as the final product. This, thanks to the instrumentation and control modules that interpret the sensor signals, in order to control the actuators such as, the heating, pumping and cooling water system. The processes are visualized thanks to an Android graphic interface application, which allows monitoring and configuring the Setpoint of the measured variables.

Systems Theory Principles and Complex Systems Engineering Concepts for Protection and Resilience in Critical Infrastructure: Lessons from the Nuclear Sector

ABSTRACTPart of the Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD‐21) (PPD 2013) mandate includes evaluating safety, security, and safeguards (or nonproliferation) mechanisms traditionally implemented within the nuclear reactors, materials, and waste sector of critical infrastructure—including a complex, dynamic set of risks and threats within an all‐hazards approach. In response, research out of Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) explores the ability of systems theory principles (hierarchy and emergence) and complex systems engineering concepts (multidomain interdependence) to better understand and address these risks and threats. This Sandia research explores the safety, safeguards, and security risks of three different nuclear sector‐related activities—spent nuclear fuel transportation, small modular reactors, and portable nuclear power reactors—to investigate the complex and dynamic risk related to the PPD‐21‐mandated all‐hazards approach. This research showed that a systems‐theoretic approach can better identify inter‐dependencies, conflicts, gaps, and leverage points across traditional safety, security, and safeguards hazard mitigation strategies in the nuclear reactors, materials, and waste sector. As a result, mitigation strategies from applying systems theoretic principles and complex systems engineering concepts can be (1) designed to better capture interdependencies, (2) implemented to better align with real‐world operational uncertainties, and (3) evaluated as a systems‐level whole to better identify, characterize, and manage PPD‐21's all hazards strategies.

Journey Making: Applying PSE Principles to Complex Curriculum Designs

Since the 1950s, Process Systems Engineering (PSE) concepts have traditionally been applied to the process industries, with great effect and with significant benefit. However, the same general approaches and principles in designing complex process designs can be applied to the design of higher education (HE) curricula. Curricula represent intended learning journeys, these being similar to the design of process flowsheets. In this paper, we set out the formal framework and concepts that underlie the challenges in design of curricula. The approaches use generic and fundamental concepts that can be applied by any discipline to curriculum design. We show how integration of discipline-specific concepts, across time and space, can be combined through design choices, to create learning journeys for students. These concepts are captured within a web-based design tool that permits wide choices for designers to build innovative curricula. The importance of visualization of curricula is discussed and illustrated, using a range of tools that permit insight into the nature of the designs. The framework and tool presented in this paper have been widely used across many disciplines, such as science, engineering, nursing, philosophy and pharmacy. As a special issue in memory of Professor Roger W.H. Sargent; we show these new developments in curriculum design are similar to the development of process flowsheets. Professor Sargent was not only an eminent research leader and pioneer, but an influential educator who gave rise to a new area in Chemical Engineering, influencing its many directions for more than 50 years.

Cognitive Work of Hypothesis Exploration During Anomaly Response

Four incidents from web-based software companies reveal important aspects of anomaly response processes when incidents arise in web operations, two of which are discussed in this article. One particular cognitive function examined in detail is hypothesis generation and exploration, given the impact of obscure automation on engineers’ development of coherent models of the systems they manage. Each case was analyzed using the techniques and concepts of cognitive systems engineering. The set of cases provides a window into the cognitive work "above the line" in incident management of complex web-operation systems.

A Historical Perspective on Development of Systems Engineering Discipline: A Review and Analysis

Since its inception, Systems Engineering (SE) has developed as a distinctive discipline, and there has been significant progress in this field in the past two decades. Compared to other engineering disciplines, SE is not affirmed by a set of underlying fundamental propositions, instead it has emerged as a set of best practices to deal with intricacies stemming from the stochastic nature of engineering complex systems and addressing their problems. Since the existing methodologies and paradigms (dominant patterns of thought and concepts) of SE are very diverse and somewhat fragmented. This appears to create some confusion regarding the design, deployment, operation, and application of SE. The purpose of this paper is 1) to delineate the development of SE from 1926–2017 based on insights derived from a histogram analysis, 2) to discuss the different paradigms and school of thoughts related to SE, 3) to derive a set of fundamental attributes of SE using advanced coding techniques and analysis, and 4) to present a newly developed instrument that could assess the performance of systems engineers. More than Two hundred and fifty different sources have been reviewed in this research in order to demonstrate the development trajectory of the SE discipline based on the frequency of publication.

Application of Model-Based Systems Engineering Concepts to Support Mission Engineering

This paper presents an approach to the utilization of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) early in the system lifecycle, which focuses on early identification of desirable system characteristics to support mission engineering (ME). The paper relies on the definition of an analysis approach and the associated mapping of architectural products. The analysis strategy focuses on integration of the results of operational simulations and system synthesis models through tradespace visualization. The architectural mapping presents the association of Systems Modeling Language (SysML) products to the analysis strategy. The coordination of these elements is presented as a demonstration of the role that MBSE concepts can play in support of ME. The approach is demonstrated through a case study analysis of a conceptual mine warfare system conducting mine countermeasure operations.

A Study on Big Knowledge and Its Engineering Issues

After entering the big data era, a new term of `big knowledge' has been coined to deal with challenges in mining a mass of knowledge from big data. While researchers used to explore the basic characteristics of big data, we have not seen any studies on the general and essential properties of big knowledge. To fill this gap, this paper studies the concepts of big knowledge, big-knowledge system, and big-knowledge engineering. Ten massiveness characteristics for big knowledge and big-knowledge systems, including massive concepts, connectedness, clean data resources, cases, confidence, capabilities, cumulativeness, concerns, consistency, and completeness, are defined and explored. Based on these characteristics, a comprehensive investigation is conducted on some large-scale knowledge engineering projects, including the Fifth Comprehensive Traffic Survey in Shanghai, the China's Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, the Troy and Trojan War Project, and the International Human Genome Project, as well as the online free encyclopedia Wikipedia. We also investigate the recent research efforts on knowledge graphs, where they are analyzed to determine which ones can be considered as big knowledge and big-knowledge systems. Further, a definition of big-knowledge engineering and its life cycle paradigm is presented. All of these projects are accordingly checked to determine whether they belong to big-knowledge engineering projects. Finally, the perspectives of big knowledge research are discussed.

A Product Line Systems Engineering Process for Variability Identification and Reduction

Software Product Line Engineering has attracted attention in the last two decades due to its promising capabilities to reduce costs and time to market through reuse of requirements and components. In practice, developing system level product lines in a large-scale company is not an easy task as there may be thousands of variants and multiple disciplines involved. The manual reuse of legacy system models at domain engineering to build reusable system libraries and configurations of variants to derive target products can be infeasible. To tackle this challenge, a Product Line Systems Engineering process is proposed. Specifically, the process extends research in the System Orthogonal Variability Model to support hierarchical variability modeling with formal definitions; utilizes Systems Engineering concepts and legacy system models to build the hierarchy for the variability model and to identify essential relations between variants; and finally, analyzes the identified relations to reduce the number of variation points. The process, which is automated by computational algorithms, is demonstrated through an illustrative example on generalized Rolls-Royce aircraft engine control systems. To evaluate the effectiveness of the process in the reduction of variation points, it is further applied to case studies in different engineering domains at different levels of complexity. Subject to system model availability, reduction of 14% to 40% in the number of variation points are demonstrated in the case studies.