Open Caesar Balancing Agility and Rigor in Model Based Systems Engineering

Abstract

Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) employs models and formal languages to support development of complex (systems-of-) systems. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) sees MBSE as a key approach to managing the complexity of system development. However, balancing agility and rigor in MBSE has been reported as a challenging task not yet addressed by modeling tools and frameworks. This is because existing MBSE approaches may enable agility but compromise rigor, or enhance rigor but impede agility. We discuss the challenges of balancing agility and rigor in MBSE across seven systems engineering architectural functions defined by the JPL Integrated Model-Centric Engineering (IMCE) initiative. We demonstrate how openCAESAR, an open-source MBSE methodology and framework created at JPL, can strike a balance between agility and rigor through a case study of the Kepler16b project and discussion of lessons learned from past projects.

Highlights

representation refers to how information is structured and organized to support the system design and development process
- entails identifying the concepts, relationships, and constraints that comprise the system’s architecture such that stakeholders can easily un- derstand, communicate, and analyze.
- reduces the cognitive load in system design as it determines the choice of the initial modeling constructs, how they are depicted, composed, combined, extended, fragmented, and configured to possess certain system characteristics while ensuring logical consistency and correctness
An agile systems engineering solution thus requires a configuration management system (CMS), resembling Git functionality, to streamline creating new versions, reviewing and approving new changes, handling conflicting versions, and merging the changes into a baseline branch.

openCAESAR

two openCAESAR methodology phases:
- First, the methodologist creates or imports the required vocab- ularies. Then, viewpoints are created based on these vocabularies and authoring tools are built to express these viewpoints.
- The second phase is an iterative development process where the methodologist works closely together with authors and stakeholders to continuously build and refine the vocabularies, descriptions, queries, and reports required for the project

References

Backlinks

openCAESAR