The document discusses challenges in maintaining consistency, completeness, and correctness (3C) across disconnected engineering data silos. It proposes using links and transformations to connect models between systems engineering and electrical design tools. Validation rules can then check that connections and components are properly mapped between the silos. The IncQuery Validator was used to import a model from E3.GENESYS into its knowledge graph and generate a validation report checking for 3C issues. Tracking link management and validation results over time provides visibility into the progress of the "digital thread" across the engineering lifecycle.

1. Next-Generation Completeness and
Consistency Management
in the Digital Thread of the Future
Ákos Horváth PhD, CTO
IncQuery Labs cPlc.

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. Digital Thread

5. Digital Thread
More and more systems design scenarios comprise a high number of domains, also
displaying a remarkable diversity in their nature
Digital Threads
• Siloed multi-domain engineering data
• Digital tools and toolchains
• Lifecycle management
• Connections that bridge data across silos
Promises
• Increasing systems quality
• Reducing risks and chances of errors
• Reducing overall production costs

6. The impact of disconnected silos
Various isolated disciplines
Systems Engineering, Mechanical,
Electrical, ALM/PLM, …
As disconnected silos, what is the interface between
architecture and disciplines?
- It is often a document produced from a discipline specific tool
- Consequence: data reentry and/or copy-paste
- No guarantee of completeness, correctness and consistency
A lot of time and money is wasted!
No global consistency
Difficult customization
Data lock-in
Vendor lock-in

7. The 3C challenge
completeness, correctness, consistency

8. Example:
transition to detailed design
Transition to Detailed Design

9. The silo problem of
“transition to detailed design”

10. The 3C Challenge
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)
→ it should be mapped to a PCB device (in ECAD)
Consistency
• If a connection transfers an item between components A and B (in SE)
→ there is a wire carrying the corresponding signal between devices A and B (in
ECAD)
Cable/Harness
Video Drone Model
What causes 3C problems?
• Input error
• Forgetting/missing something
• Copy/paste error
• Incorrect mappings
• Roundtripping gone bad
• Change

11. Prerequisites to
solve the 3C challenge

12. Queries
Technology Landscape
Link
Link
Link
Silo Silo
Systems Engineering ECAD
Links Queries Transformations
Transformation

13. First-class citizen
What can links connect?
• Full documents
• Repositories/Large set of data
• Low-level elements/objects
Link
Link
Link
document document
E.g. linking between a serialized version of the video drone and
cable/harness models as files.
E.g. linking between given version of the video drone and
cable/harness models stored in the silos.
E.g. linking between components in a video drone model and wires in
a cable/harness model.

14. Linking between Silos
• Multiplicity
• 1-to-1, 1-to-many, many-to-many
Link
Link
Link
E.g. different links for each
component and wire, item
and signal.
E.g. one link for all wires
related to a component.
E.g. for each component
pairs and connections
between them, there is a
link to the relevant devices
and wires between them.

15. Linking between Silos
• Multiplicity
• 1-to-1, 1-to-many, many-to-many
• Recognize broken links
• Automated (Immediate/Scheduled), Manual
Link
Link
Link
E.g. a component is
deleted which had a
related wire.

16. Linking between Silos
• Multiplicity
• 1-to-1, 1-to-many, many-to-many
• Recognize broken links
• Automated (Immediate/Scheduled), Manual
• Managing Versions
• Supporting all versions, Supporting only published versions, Only latest revision
Link
Link’
Link’’
Device
Device'
Component
Component'
E.g. for each change a new
link is created.

17. Linking between Silos
• Multiplicity
• 1-to-1, 1-to-many, many-to-many
• Recognize broken links
• Automated (Immediate/Scheduled), Manual
• Managing Versions
• Supporting all versions, Supporting only published versions, Only latest revision
Link
Link’’
Manually publish new version
Device
Device'
Component
Component'
E.g. links are created when
it is triggered by a publish.
E.g. for each change a new
link is created.

18. Linking between Silos
• Multiplicity
• 1-to-1, 1-to-many, many-to-many
• Recognize broken links
• Automated (Immediate/Scheduled), Manual
• Managing Versions
• Supporting all versions, Supporting only published versions, Only latest revision
Link’’
Device'
Component'
E.g. no version information
is available.
E.g. links are created when
it is triggered by a publish.
E.g. for each change a new
link is created.

19. Managing links with data between
Silos
View data & links
- Data and links are presented for end-
users in a table/tree/diagram format
- Custom representation or existing tools
- Data and links are navigable
Querying data & links
- Simple/Complex filtering
- Relation/Graph based querying
- Full/text search
- Hybrid

20. Data visible from the Silos
No data replication from Silos
A wrapper is used for accessing the data inside Silos
Full data replication of data from Silos in native format
Data is stored in a native format (object blobs, files etc.)
Data Warehousing, Data Lake
Full data replication from Silos
All data is extracted from the Silos to provide a full
access to the data
Publishing a state of the data from Silos
Usually requires a manual step to publish the data
All data of a given snapshot of the data is accessible
Wrapper
blob,
files,
etc…
Access
Request
Manually publish new version

21. Mapping between Silos:
Rule based
Precondition (in SE):
there is connection that transfers an item
between components A and B
Action (in ECAD):
create a wire carrying the corresponding
signal between devices A and B
Silo Silo
Systems Engineering ECAD
Transformation

22. Automated creation of links
Handover automation:
Bridges capable of moving data, metadata, and documents between tools
automatically. It helps in replacing redundant and error-prone data re-entry with
automated import-export steps.
Requires customized transformation capabilities:
- Model to model, Model to text, Text to model
- Possibility to create custom rule definitions
- Diagram-based editor
- Text-based editor

23. Tools supporting
these features

24. Comparison Table*
Tool Linking Querying Transformation Data Storage
Syndeia™ - Intercax Generic links with
tool-specific
endpoints
Gremlin Rule-based
synchronization
No replication
(links only)
Smartfacts OSLC linking
support
Traceability
coverage queries
? (no information) No replication
SBE Vision Generic links with
tool-specific
endpoints
“Semantic search”
(elastic search)
? (no information) Full replication
(ontology based)
The Reuse company–
Eningeering
Studio
OSLC KM,
Interface modelling
Rule-based
validation
Rule-based
transformation
framework
Hybrid Replication
(latest version)
IncQuery Cloud Generic links based
on URLs
Elastic search,
SPARQL, VQL
Tool-specific
bridges
Full replication
(multiple)
*Based on data accessible from the websites of the given tools as of 2023 / 04 / 12

25. Addressing the 3C Analysis
case study with Zuken
E3.GENESYS and IncQuery

26. Our take
• 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 tool
integration
• Single source of truth is NOT a single model
➔ it is the ”model of models”
• Digital thread analytics can
• look at links AND look into models
• Semantically analyze both
• Holistic → adaptable to all tools in the
toolchain

27. The E3.GENESYS Connector

28. Video demonstration of the
E3.GENESYS Connector

29. A new platform for digital engineering
automation.
• Creates a unified, searchable, and
analyzable representation of your
complete digital thread: the knowledge
graph
• Automated Quality Gates: detailed
validation reports and analysis dashboards
that integrate seamlessly with modern,
web-based tools
• Handover Automation: light-weight
bridge tools that eliminate copy-paste and
date re-entry
• Powered by digital thread analytics:
queries and mapping rules that can
seamlessly cross tool (silo) boundaries
IncQuery Suite
DESKTOP
VALIDATOR
CLOUD

30. Main features
- Works with popular tools like Enterprise Architect and MagicDraw/Cameo
out of the box.
- Runs as a standalone application or as part of a DevOps pipeline
- Provides a convenient extension framework to define custom validation
rules for models, which we rely on for the GENESYS adaptation →
- Supports centrally-shared / version-managed projects, by integrating with
Teamwork Cloud, or file-based VCSs such as Git/SVN.
Devops-ready automated quality gate, providing detailed model
quality reports, based on standard and custom rules.
- Helps Systems Engineers to assess key quality-related metrics of their
work, independently of what authoring environment they work in.
- Helps downstream stakeholders (e.g. QA Engineers, Software Architects,
Electrical Engineers, …) to automatically assess the quality of an inbound
systems architecture model, based on rules such as the library provided by
the SAIC Digital Engineering Validation Tool, or 3C analysis.
IncQuery Validator

31. The “DEOps” Pipeline
31
INCQUERY VALIDATOR
SE
EE
E3.GENESYS
Connector

32. Validation report for 3C Analysis
• Results after initial import performed with
GENESYS.E3 Connector
• Partially complete
(Subsystem mapping is
disabled by default)
• Inconsistent signal allocations →
“If a connection transfers an item between components A and B (in SE)
➔ there is a wire carrying the corresponding signal between
devices A and B (in ECAD)”

33. Adding missing wiring and
signal allocation

34. Validation Report for 3C
Analysis
• Re-run the validation
• Result: Allocation problems resolved

35. Progress tracking
• Historical analytics as the “progress bar” of a complex engineering process
• Model Integrator / Reviewer can follow the “Transition to Detailed Design” process on a
version control dashboard
• Track progress via KPIs as the mapping completeness is improved
• Identify and fix correctness issues quickly
35

36. Takeaway
• Creating the Digital thread requires a lot of
underlying methodologies and technologies to work in harmony
• There is no single golden solution
• Define your requirements carefully
• Consistency, completeness, consistency analysis
• Version control
• Link management
• Handover automation
• Access control
• Model validation
• Etc.
Be open to share your successes and failures

37. akos.horvath@incquerylabs.com
+36204157393
CTO
Thanks for your attention!
Ákos Horváth, PhD