The document discusses the need for holistic systems engineering and breaking down disconnected silos. It proposes a conceptual framework using lightweight traceability and digital thread analytics to address completeness, correctness, and consistency challenges when transferring engineering data between systems engineering tools and detailed design tools. This approach aims to improve communication, reduce defects, and connect previously separated disciplines and tools.

1. The Genesis of Holistic
Systems Engineering
Istvan Rath
CEO, IncQuery Group
The Digital Engineering Symposium
A Zuken Company

2. The IncQuery Group is an international team of engineering experts with a strong
research and development background. We support systems engineers in several
industries to create tailormade solutions. Automotive professionals, aircraft
engineers, space engineers all trust us to make their systems work exceptionally,
safer, faster, and more reliable.
Who We Are

3. Global Partner Network
Demonstrated history of successful collaboration
with leading international organizations

4. The promised benefits of MBSE
• Improved communication
• Fewer defects / higher quality
• To improve not just quality of SE, but the overall quality and value of engineering across the
organization
• Systems architecture as the “single source of truth”
• Silos remain disconnected even though the goal of MBSE is to connect silos
• Closed product ecosystems
• Lack of good APIs and interchange formats
The MBSE Value Chain
is broken
No global consistency
Difficult customization
Data lock-in
Vendor lock-in

5. Digital Threads - The impact of disconnected silos
Systems Engineering remains an isolated discipline
– One of many silos next to mechanical, electrical, ALM/PLM, …
As disconnected silos, what is the interface between architecture and
disciplines?
– It is often a document produced from an MBSE tool
– Consequence: data reentry and/or copy-paste
– No guarantee of completeness, correctness and
consistency
A lot of time and money is wasted!
8

6. Example: transition to detailed design
Transition to Detailed Design
V-Model

7. The silo problem of “transition to detailed design”
Video Drone Model Cable/Harness
Systems Engineering Detailed Design
SysML extension for ECAD (Electrical Computer-aided Design)
(modeling-languages.com)

8. The 3C Challenge:
Building High Quality Model of Models
• Completeness
– Make sure all my components and functions exist both in SE
and ECAD
• Correctness
– If component A has is of type “PCB” (in SE)
è it should be mapped to a PCB device (in ECAD)
• Consistency
– If a connection transfers an item between components A and B
(in SE)
è there is a wire carrying the corresponding signal between
devices A and B (in ECAD)

9. What causes 3C problems?
• Input error
• Forgetting/missing something
• Copy/paste error
• Incorrect mappings
• Roundtripping gone bad
• Change

10. Our take
Discipline-specific, automated
bridge tools that create the
digital thread
Overlaid layer of digital
thread analytics that can
expose parts of the digital
thread depending on the
need/use-case
Vendor-neutral federated
toolchain

11. The E3.GENESYS Connector
Video Drone Model Cable/Harness Topology Editor
Systems Engineering Detailed Design
Transfer Logical
Architecture
Diagrams
Requirements
Parameters
Verification Requirements
Expose the Model
Design Envelope

12. Building the Electrical Viewpoint
• Components, signals, and ports
are analyzed
• Signals are of type electrical
• Ports have pin:signal
assignments, part number, or
are of type electrical
• Components are of type ECU,
PCB or are part of an electrical
signal

13. The E3.GENESYS Interface
1
1 Navigate the model repository
2 Connect the model, map elements, and load into E3
2
3
3 View model details to provide context, criteria,
constraints, etc... 4
4 Provide feedback on observed parameters to verify
back to the architecture

14. Video demonstration of the GENESYS.E3 Connector

15. Our take
Discipline-specific, automated
bridge tools that create the
digital thread
Overlaid layer of digital
thread analytics that can
expose parts of the digital
thread depending on the
need/use-case
Vendor-neutral federated
toolchain

16. • Efficiently extract your engineering data from
proprietary silos
IncQuery Suite
Change the way you do MBSE!
• Set up detailed validation reports and analysis
dashboards, and automated workflows by web-based
interfaces that integrate seamlessly with modern tools
• Create a unified, searchable, and analyzable
representation of your complete digital thread

17. • Automatically validates
your SysML or other
engineering projects,
using standard rule sets
(e.g., OMG UML, SysML,
UPDM, UAF, or others),
or custom-built rules
• Efficiently extracts your
engineering data from
open/ proprietary tools
and repositories
• Searches, queries, and
analyzes your complete
digital thread
• Empowers the creation
of in-depth, interactive,
visual documents and
dashboards by the
incorporated Jupyter
open-source ecosystem
Automated
quality gates
Analysis
Dashboards
Engineering
Queries
Integration
Bridges
• Builds continuous
integration/validation
workflows, enabling the
next generation DevOps
for MBSE
• Unique insight into
your digital thread
• Maintains a uniform,
easily accessible,
structured knowledge
graph
• Uses powerful graph
query languages such as
VQL, SPARQL
• Uses ElasticSearch full-
text search
• Provides automated
and customizable
bridge components to
perform information
flow between tools

18. The IncQuery Suite Connects to:

19. INCQUERY MODEL VIEWER
An easy-to-use web
application to visualize and
browse your projects in
a structured and
collaboration-focused way.
INCQUERY DESKTOP
A powerful add-on to
SysML tools that lets you
execute model queries and
validation rules locally.
INCQUERY SERVER
An enterprise-class,
scalable application that
extracts data from silos
and maintains the
knowledge graph.
INCQUERY INTEGRATOR
DevOps-ready stand-alone
applications to facilitate
automated information
sharing between
engineering tools, with full
traceability.
INCQUERY VALIDATOR
DevOps-ready stand-alone
applications that provide
automated model quality
reports, based on standard
and custom rules.
INCQUERY ANALYZER
A web-based workbench
incorporating the powerful
Jupyter ecosystem to
validate and analyze
your complete
digital thread.

20. • Integrated with
• the popular Jupyter ecosystem through
open-source Python libraries and the
OpenAPI interface
• documentation management systems
such as the OpenMBEE View Editor or
Atlassian Confluence
• Easy-to-use analyst workbench to manage automated validation and
analysis reports
• Supports standards such as SysML, UPDM, UAF
• as well as open-source libraries
(SAIC Digital Engineering Validation Tool)
• Custom rules can be defined by queries (e.g. SPARQL, ElasticSearch)
• E.g. GENESYS.E3 naming consistency rule ààà

21. 3C Analysis for the GENESYS.E3 Connector
• Step 1: Initial mapping performed
with GENESYS.E3 Connector
• Result:
– Partially complete (Subsystem
mapping is disabled by default)
“If a connection transfers an item between components A and B (in SE)
è there is a wire carrying the corresponding signal between
devices A and B (in ECAD)”
• Inconsistent signal allocations

22. Step 2: Adding missing wiring and signal allocation

23. 3C Analysis continued
• Step 3: Re-run the validation
• Result: One pair of allocation problems is resolved
2021 WSRC – The Genesis of Holistic
Systems Design | Enrique Krajmalnik and
Istvan Rath
26

24. Progress tracking
• Historical analytics as the “progress bar” of a complex
engineering process
– Model Integrator / Reviewer can follow the “Requirements to
System Design” transition process on a version control
dashboard
– Track progress via KPIs as the mapping completeness is
improved
– Identify and fix
correctness issues
quickly

25. Takeaways
• Disconnected / loosely connected silos are a significant
problem today - breaking the MBSE Value Chain
• We proposed a conceptual framework to fix this problem
– Light-weight traceability approach
– Digital Thread Analytics to tackle the 3C Challenge
• Applicable to other tools / scenarios as well!
• https://www.zuken.com/us/product/model-based-wire-
harness-design/
• https://incquery.io

26. T h a n k
Y U
istvan.rath@incquerylabs.com
István Ráth, CEO
peter.lunk@incquerylabs.com
Péter Lunk, Solutions Manager