Insight最新文献

This article presents an initial set of concepts resulting from research by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD/RE) and the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) under an initiative called “systems engineering modernization” (SEMOD). This article discusses the “supra-system model,” which evolved as a different view of systems engineering lifecycle activities across the entire life of an engineered system. This view promotes systems engineering as a continuous process that is 1) iterative across the full life of a system and 2) managed through a digital transformation centered on data and models. This article also discusses the value of “shared and authoritatively managed data and models” in the lifecycle of future systems. These together present a modernized view of systems engineering where “seamless and efficient transfer of data and models” will support practices that are “more agile and responsive to changing stakeholder needs.”

This 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.

Current technical oversight approaches used for government programs (for example, stage-gate reviews) are not agile — their expectations are not aligned with agile development cadences, and they are not adequately responsive to continuous unpredictable change. This article explores ways to provide insight and responsive forward looking actionable guidance for agile projects in the context of government and defense programs. It proposes a general oversight approach that produces minimal drag and disruption and keeps pace with agile product development.

Agility in the future of systems engineering (FuSE) is one of the topic areas under the INCOSE FuSE initiative. A roadmap for near-term improvement, presented at the 2021 INCOSE International Symposium, offered nine strategic concepts appropriate and ready for further movement toward standard practice. Initial work in that direction enticed several practitioners and researchers to address selected concepts in this special issue of the INCOSE INSIGHT publication. The purpose of this lead-off article is to provide a contextual backdrop for the articles that follow.

Over the past several years, numerous industries have increased their adoption of the systems modeling language (SysML®) and model-based systems engineering (MBSE) as a core practice within their engineering lifecycles. However, the introduction of SysML and MBSE methodologies has not yet yielded many of the originally envisioned benefits. System models are becoming larger and more complex and many large MBSE projects continue to experience problems with model integration, repository performance, and model lifecycle management. The root cause is the failure to recognize the MBSE digital environment as a complex engineering information processing system that requires the same rigor and development processes as the system-of-interest (SoI) it is designing. This article describes how three future of systems engineering (FuSE) agility foundation concepts (system of innovation, effective stakeholder engagement, and continuous integration) directly address some of the problems seen in adoption, deployment, and sustainment of the MBSE digital environment as an SoI.

A hypothesis for an optimized, project lifecycle development method was formulated by understanding (i) the project environment of implementation, (ii) applicable, current state-of-the-art frameworks, and (iii) eliciting feedback before, during and after testing from those individuals participating in the lifecycle development framework. While traditional waterfall methods have their place, high uncertainty projects instigate exploratory work and as such, agile implementations were created to allow projects to quickly adapt (PMI 2017). In the context of dynamic environments and niche products, NASA is no stranger. Understanding the current state of the project and current state-of-the-art facilitates an approach that allows for well-established techniques in the way of lean and agile to benefit project development. Additionally, these inclusions may help expose knowledge gaps in the current state-of-the-art and also lend credibility to approaches derived to help close those gaps. This article describes the modified agile concept (MAC) and its multi-disciplinary approach to a sampling of various lean and agile methods integrated alongside traditional, waterfall methods (such as a hybrid model) to support the hypothesized project lifecycle development. This approach was developed as part of a case study with a design and test team responsible for building test stations to qualify components of the life support system on the next generation space suit. This article will outline exclusively the scrum and lean methods in the MAC with a cursory overview on kanban development supporting the MAC.

Model-based systems engineering approach is increasingly used to manage the complexity of modern systems and to reduce costs of their development. In the aerospace industry, modelling and simulation is not only a cost-effective verification and validation strategy where test rigs and flight tests are far more expensive but also is increasingly used in the certification process. Nevertheless, as with any digital artefact, if the models aren't configured and traceability isn't assured, then the models are not of much use. Configuration management comes into play as a key discipline to enable the use and maintenance of the models. This paper explores the use of configuration management for modelling and simulation in an aerospace setting, with a specific example involving landing gear and its surrounding systems.

How do we incubate and accelerate innovation? This article examines lessons learned from recent Verification and Validation (V&V) summits and Technical Interchange Meetings (TIMs) held by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) V&V Strategies and Practices Branch, which explored the challenges of being agile and dynamic (in step with the pace of technology) while being effectively systematic and rigorous.

The ongoing transformation in the industry from a document-based systems engineering to a model-based systems engineering approach reveals a need for new methods of verifying and validating systems. Traditional methods of testing the actual system are getting more and more expensive. A model-based environment could significantly reduce testing and, most importantly, verification and validation processes costs. It allows testing on the system model by applying various techniques, such as simulation, analysis, review, mock-ups, etc. There are, however, very few approaches today detailing how verification and validation of the entire system (taking into count its components and subsystems) could be performed. This paper proposes an approach to perform verification and validation of a system using system models developed with Systems Modeling Language (SysML) and in accordance with the MagicGrid (formerly known as MBSE Grid) framework. The approach covers system testing activities beginning with verification of the lowest modeled system elements against system requirements and finishing with validation of the system as a whole, against stakeholder needs.