Elevating the meaning of data and operations within the development lifecycle through an interoperable toolchain

Abstract

The use of different engineering methods and tools is a common practice to cover all stages in the systems development lifecycle, generating a very good number of system artifacts. Moreover, these artifacts are commonly encoded in different formats and can only be accessed, in most cases, through proprietary and non‐standard protocols. In this context, the OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration) initiative pursues the creation of public specifications (data shapes) to exchange any artifact generated during the development lifecycle. In this paper, authors extend and apply the OSLC KM (Knowledge Management) specification as a solution with a two‐folded objective: 1) representation of any kind of system artifact and 2) extension of OSLC mechanisms to support the notion of delegated operation. In this manner, it is possible to enhance the exchange of data items and to reuse existing operations within the toolchain as it is demonstrated through a case study.

An Mbse-Based Approach for the Definition and Evaluation of Engineering It Architectures

“…There are two major drivers for the complexity of the engineering IT. First, the number and diversity of engineering approaches and resulting artefacts is rising (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al, 2019). This means new engineering processes, defining what to do (ISO, 2015) and methods defining how to do (Graner, 2013), need to be implemented.…”

“…As a consequence of evolution, suitable engineering approaches, such as Systems Engineering (SE), are currently expanded in research and implemented in enterprises. SE is an interdisciplinary approach to successfully design complex systems (Gausemeier et al, 2013), generating -besides other engineering approaches -a rising number of heterogeneous artefacts (information carrier) (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al, 2019). The engineering approaches comprise new engineering processes and methods, which pose new challenges to the engineering IT such as traceability or end-to-end configuration management (Fisher et al, 2014).…”

“…MBSE demonstrates that more and more artefacts become digital, requiring a defined structure and inducing a need for end-to-end continuity. This necessitates a broad set of functionality regarding the engineering IT, often leading to a large number of combined tools (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al, 2019). On the one hand, the tools need to and can be combined in various, synergetic ways, especially since they have to communicate via interfaces, which may be incompatible or offer limited capabilities.…”