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Written by: Dale Tutt, Vice President of Aerospace and Defense Industry, Siemens Digital Industries Software
Innovation is the name of the game in the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry. In fact, innovation is leading the charge in the burgeoning urban air mobility (UAM) market, fueling new opportunities in propulsion—electric, hybrid-electric and hydrogen—and ushering in a new era of space travel and exploration.
No matter where you look, great ideas are emerging faster than ever. There is talk of new supersonic and hypersonic flight. Green solutions and new sustainability measures are also quickly emerging. Innovation is being fueled by start-ups around the globe, as well as major players in both the commercial and defense sectors. For the world of engineering and product development, this means the pressure is on—not only to innovate, but also to get to market faster with safe and reliable products, all while reducing program cost.
Dealing with Complexity
The complexities that can hamper innovation are not going away. If anything, they are increasing by the day. In addition to the everyday complexities, there are new challenges on the horizon. We are seeing increased use of electrification throughout the aircraft. More efficient and reliable electromechanical options are supplanting hydraulic technologies. Electronics are replacing the more traditional mechanical functionality. And let’s not forget that everything these days is driven by software, and building more software functionality into an aircraft is on the rise as well.
While it’s true software enables greater control, flexibility, improved and futuristic capabilities, it also makes the tasks of the engineering team a great deal more difficult. Designing, validating, certifying and delivering an A&D product is a far more difficult proposition these days.
The Inter-Relatedness of Everything
Aerospace engineering executives around the world are looking for the latest methods to develop next-generation aircraft. Everything is connected and there is a lot more integration as development shifts to a system, or to a system of interconnected systems. A&D teams need a proven methodology that brings these products to market faster, and in the process capitalizes on the growing demand for innovative and highly interconnected products. Model-based systems engineering, or MBSE, is that method—providing a digitalized solution that harnesses the complexity behind highly integrated systems, delivering superior products on time and within schedule.
Emergence of MBSE
Helping teams design and build these myriad integrated systems to communicate and collaborate more effectively is what MBSE is all about. MBSE is growing in popularity because it is a modern approach to systems engineering. It brings a new level of integration and efficiency to complex systems and processes across the many multi-domain challenges aircraft manufacturers use today.
Some in the industry may already be familiar with MBSE methods. Others might be more familiar with “systems engineering” or “systems design” as these activities are common today. To understand the value behind MBSE, it’s important to define these two terms. Of course, there are a variety of definitions depending on who you ask, but for the purposes of this discussion, let’s define them as follows:
“Systems engineering” starts with the big picture and works its way down into the details. It is extremely rigorous about managing requirements and driving those requirements and functions down into systems, subsystems and components. Through this methodical process of driving requirements further down from one level to the next, it is possible to trace a requirement from the high-level view of an aircraft down to an integrated circuit and back again.
“Systems design,” on the other hand, is an interdisciplinary engineering activity that enables the realization of a specific system. It is a type of process that defines components, interfaces and other data to ensure all specified requirements have been met. It is also an important way to focus on safety.
Companies that implement a systems engineering approach today struggle when they rely on document-based solutions. One set of requirements might be in one database, system modeling might be in Microsoft Visio or SysML tools, system safety analysis might be in various tools and verification and test data might end up in an Excel spreadsheet. Everything's disconnected—and the deliverables look like a document. Further, much of this activity occurs in isolated workspaces or silos. As new requirements and system models are produced to define larger, more complex systems, document-centric approaches do not scale, and it is nearly impossible to manage traceability when you’re trying to address tens or hundreds of thousands of interactions.
With MBSE, all processes throughout product development are supported by comprehensive digital twin and digital thread workflows which tie decisions and data across domains. As a result, this “single source of truth” makes data more readily accessible for the multi-disciplinary development of today’s most advanced A&D products.
MBSE and the Digital Transformation
It is important to realize the MBSE approach is much more than functional or logical modeling. It is built as a digital thread (MBSE digital thread) and serves as the “digital backbone” which unites engineering, manufacturing, supply chain and program management activities. A digital thread is a composite of interwoven and interconnected digital strands, creating an ecosystem for program execution.
The MBSE digital thread creates a model-based systems engineering process that connects multiple domains within the digital enterprise. Through the tight integration of this digital thread, teams from these domains can test, retest and push the boundaries virtually, optimizing the product before building hardware to avoid jeopardizing downstream work and timelines. When companies transition from system modeling to the MBSE approach, they are able to leverage an open ecosystem that enables the usage of any system modeling tool. They are connected to the entire lifecycle of data and information needed to certify, test, verify, deliver and maintain new products.
A robust, comprehensive MBSE digital thread enables companies and programs to orchestrate their technical program and manage their technical scope throughout the entire product lifecycle. This is significant because many of today’s products take several years to develop, and aircraft OEMs need to establish a certain level of continuity.
MBSE Acceptance Within the Industry
Increasingly, MBSE is gaining widespread usage as companies seek to certify more complex and highly integrated systems. The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) along with other regulatory agencies are requiring a more organized systems engineering approach for OEMs and their partners.
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) also recognizes the need for MBSE. The DoD sees MBSE as the means to communicate requirements more effectively to the OEMs and having a process in place to check that all requirements have been satisfied. A robust MBSE digital thread enables companies to accelerate their product development and certification processes, while improving communications with various regulatory agencies.
Is MBSE in Your Future?
The MBSE digital thread makes everything come together and function as a digital enterprise. It connects your requirements to your model, to your design, to your analysis and ultimately, to your verification processes and artifacts. Because you are automating these data hand-offs with a digital thread (not a printed document), you gain the convenience of full traceability. Collaboration and continuity of data occurs up and down the entire product lifecycle.
The bottom line is our customers are reducing their development time by adopting the MBSE digital thread. They are experiencing less rework when it’s finally time to build. With MBSE, you can go faster with less risk across the entire product lifecycle from concept and design all the way into manufacturing.
Perhaps the real advantage to our MBSE methodology is with all this innovation going on, it gives teams the ability to be flexible and more agile to get both the most tedious and the more complex tasks done.
Learn more at Siemens Digital Industries Software.
About the Author
Dale Tutt is the Vice President of Aerospace and Defense Industry, for Siemens Digital Industries Software. He is responsible for defining the industry strategy for Siemens, leading definition of industry solutions for Aerospace and Defense customers.
Prior to joining Siemens, Dale worked at The Spaceship Company, a sister company to Virgin Galactic, as the VP of Engineering and VP of Program Management, leading the development of spaceships for space tourism. He led the team on a successful flight to space in December 2018.
Previously, Dale worked at Textron Aviation/Cessna Aircraft in program and engineering leadership roles. As the Chief Engineer and Program Director of the Scorpion Jet program, he led a dynamic cross-functional team to design, build and fly the Scorpion Jet prototype from concept to first flight in 23 months. Dale also worked as an engineer at Bombardier Learjet and General Dynamics Space System Division.