Digital Engineering Enablers for Systems Engineering in Early-Stage Research and Development

Robust systems engineering is perceived as an unnecessary cost and schedule burden when the goal is proof of concept in an early-stage project (TRL 1-5). In reality the majority of industry, as opposed to academic, early-stage research and development (ESR&D) efforts are generally not “pure research”, but instead focus on technology development for the purpose of technology transition to applied development and technology insertion into new or existing products. To overcome the barriers, an early and active end-user focused system engineering approach is needed to build the use cases to support the transition from fundamental research to applied development. Digital engineering (DE) enablers can lower the transition investment cost through the use of agile methodologies, reference architectures, and model-based design and manufacturing capabilities. End-to-end digital continuity from ESR&D to manufacturing and sustainment facilitates early discoveries of transition risks, which enable informed decision-making to mitigate pitfalls leading to the “valley of death.”

This article leverages efforts associated with Industry 4.0, digital engineering transformation and INCOSE working group efforts to illustrate how a systems engineering approach based on DE concepts facilitates rapid instantiation of key systems engineering process and elements in ESR&D projects. This approach is both enabling to foundational ESR&D efforts, and transformational in building a bridge across the valley of death to foster success in technology transition to product. An agnostic tool, standards-based framework is presented, and specific tools are used to illustrate ESR&D transformation.