This blog recaps a section of our recent webinar, to watch the entire presentation, visit Techniques to Manage Work Breakdown Structures.

Streamline Your Program Management: Techniques to Manage Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)

In aerospace and defense program management, success hinges on coordinating complex, interconnected projects while maintaining clear visibility across your entire program. When managing multiple systems and stakeholders, your work breakdown structure becomes the foundation that either strengthens or undermines your project’s success.

In this webinar, Cary Bryczek, Director of Aerospace & Defense Solutions at Jama Software, demonstrates how to incorporate MIL-STD-881F work breakdown structures into Jama Connect^® as part of your systems engineering processes.

Whether you’re managing space systems, information systems, or strategic missile programs, this webinar will show you how to streamline your program management with techniques to manage your WBS.

Key Takeaways:

• MIL-STD-881F fundamentals: Understanding the Department of Defense Standard Practice and how it improves acquisition communication
• Real-world implementation: See how MIL-STD-881F work breakdown structures can be incorporated into Jama Connect, including a live demonstration.
• Cross-functional alignment: Strategies to coordinate teams and manage interdependencies across complex defense programs
• Commodity-specific insights: How WBS elements apply to space systems, information systems, launch systems, and strategic missile systems
• Communication enhancement: Best practices for developing uniform WBS processes that improve stakeholder alignment and regulatory compliance.

Webinar Preview, Click HERE to Watch The Entire Presentation

TRANSCRIPT PREVIEW

Cary Bryczek: So, here’s a quick look at what we will cover today, and in the end we’ll have a Q&A of course. So, we’ll talk about some strategies for a work breakdown structure construction, obviously we’ll talk about what WBS is used for, we’ll look at a WBS hierarchy, and the product breakdown structure, talk about the differences, we’ll see a live example in Jama Connect, and we’ll finish up with maybe some possible extensions that you might use in Jama Connect through integration. So, what is a work breakdown structure? I went out there and did some research. Project management institute talks about a work breakdown structure being, that it defines a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the objectives.

Really, when you see these kinds of definitions, the important parts are the deliverable-oriented and the work. So, it’s not like a task list, it’s what you’re doing to produce the product or the system that you’re building. The Defense Acquisition University defines a WBS as a product-oriented family tree of hardware, software, services, data, and facilities. So, the theme really is this product-oriented and a tree composition of the work breakdown structures. And it’s not only composed of the product pieces itself, but the services and the data and the facilities and the results of the systems engineering efforts. So, it’s the effort plus the product itself. Who uses work breakdown structures? Really, they’re required or strongly recommended in various industries and government sectors, especially where project management, cost control, and systems engineering are critical.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Aerospace

Bryczek: With aerospace and defense contractors, they are required to submit a WBS as part of their proposals and their contracts. They are used for cost estimation, scheduling, and risk management. Construction and engineering firms, WBS is essential for managing large infrastructure projects. It’s often required by clients or even regulatory bodies. IT software development, project management professionals, so there’s a lot of people that are project management professionals that are using a WBS as part of their repertoire to deliver good projects, or even consult with organizations to deliver good project management practices.

WBS has lots of standards and guidelines to assist practitioners. So, in many cases, following the specific guidance within the documents is mandatory. Here I’ve just highlighted some notable guidelines, MIL-STD-881 is required for all ACAT programs, NASA also has a very prescriptive method to implement WBS, PMI has published books, and has lots of references available online for practitioners. The European, I didn’t capture this one, but the European Cooperation for Space Standardization, the ECSS group, in Europe, they provide detailed guidance as well on work breakdown structures through their management standards. And they reference principles from ISO 9000, and it really aligns their standards and their product assurance through a harmonized way to do work breakdown structures.

So, what’s the purpose of a WBS? It’s an assistant mechanism for any stakeholder really, in the development of a clear vision of the end products, or the outcomes to be produced by the product. So, it’s a framework for all of the deliverables throughout the life cycle. So, the WBS extends the product breakdown structure because it’s capturing all of the work that’s necessary for the project by adding in the non-product work. So, if you’re constructing a bicycle, well, I have to draft the CAD model, I have to review it, I have to do a lot of these things that are not necessarily part of the bicycle, a component, but these are part of the engineering activities. So, a work breakdown structure is not a to-do list, it’s not a schedule or an estimate, and it’s not really a tool to even make your life harder.

RELATED: Cybersecurity in the Air: Addressing Modern Threats with DO-326A

Bryczek: So, it supports very large projects so that you can eliminate risk, and also it will help you with the scope creep as well. So, you don’t want to do more work than what’s on that WBS, so it really helps people understand the scope of the kinds of activities that they’re producing because it is deliverable based. So, the benefits, it helps prevent work from slipping through the cracks, it helps people understand where the pieces fit into the overall project management plan. So, if you’re a software developer and you’re writing this one piece of the software requirement spec, or the software system spec, now you know why your deliverable is due, when, and how it fits in with the overall structure. It facilitates that communication and cooperation across the whole team, it also helps you prevent changes, that WBS is kind of like, this is the guide path for everything that you do. And it helps get team buy-in and helps build the team. it helps people get their mind around the project itself.

So, what do we have to do to create the statement of the work breakdown structure? So, a work breakdown structure is, first, you go through this process of identifying the system or the project end item to be structured. So, you’re trying to understand that scope, what is it that we’re building? And then, you take that product and you successively subdivide it into increasingly detailed and manageable subsidiary work products or elements. So, you’re taking this product, this bicycle, and you’re decomposing it. I have a frame, I have the front wheel, I have the rear wheel, I have the brakes… And then, what you’re going to do is take that product breakdown structure that’s been subdivided, and now use that to determine what the work breakdown structure is. So, you’re going to focus on these outcomes and identify these deliverables. So, the focus is supposed to be on the outcomes, not the activities needed to reach them.

TO WATCH THE ENTIRE WEBINAR, VISIT:
Techniques to Manage Work Breakdown Structures

An Inside Look at the Airborne Fire Control Radar Market: The Sky’s AI

These days, air superiority isn’t just about speed and firepower; it’s also about data and information. At the center of this data-driven battlespace is the Airborne Fire Control Radar (AFCR), a cutting-edge system that gives pilots unparalleled situational awareness. The AFCR systems on an aircraft act as its eyes and brain, enabling it to track, detect, and engage targets with remarkable accuracy from a considerable distance. They have a significant impact on the outcome of aerial engagements and the effectiveness of combat aircraft, making them vital to military aviation.

This blog will examine the ever-changing AFCR market. We’ll look at the current developments that are fueling its expansion, such as evolving geopolitical environments and technological advancements. The main participants in the industry, their difficulties, and the prospects for this crucial defense technology will also be discussed.

What is an Airborne Fire Control Radar?

Military fighters, bombers, and attack helicopters are the main aircraft equipped with the advanced sensor system known as an Airborne Fire Control Radar. An AFCR offers the high-resolution information required to direct weapons to a target, in contrast to conventional surveillance radar, which merely detects objects. It provides the aircraft’s fire control computer with the target’s range, altitude, speed, and trajectory. This enables the pilot or system to fire cannons or launch missiles with a high chance of hitting a target directly, even if the target is moving quickly or evasively.

It is impossible to exaggerate the significance of these systems. They enable a single aircraft to engage multiple threats at once, monitor large areas of airspace, and discriminate between friendly and hostile forces. To put it simply, an air force that has a better AFCR system has a clear combat advantage.

Current Drivers and Trends in the Market

A number of important factors are propelling the global AFCR market’s steady growth. The main drivers are global air force modernization and geopolitical tensions. Countries are investing in new-generation fighters with cutting-edge technology and updating their current fleets of aircraft with more sophisticated radar systems.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Aerospace

Developments in Technology

The primary force behind change in the AFCR market is technology. There are two noteworthy developments:

• AESA Radar Dominance: The industry standard today is Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars. Because AESA systems can electronically steer their beams, they can track multiple targets in different directions simultaneously, unlike older mechanically scanned radars. They are essential for contemporary air forces because they are more dependable, more difficult to detect, and more resilient to electronic jamming.
• AI and Cognitive Radar: “Cognitive” radars are being produced by combining machine learning and artificial intelligence. These systems have the ability to learn from their surroundings, adjust in real time to new threats, and more accurately separate targets from clutter. By lessening the pilot’s workload and accelerating decision-making, this technology has the potential to completely transform air combat.

Increasing Need for Unmanned Systems

A new area for AFCR systems has been made possible by the widespread use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. Sophisticated, portable radars are necessary for advanced combat drones to conduct autonomous missions and surveillance. Compact and effective AFCR solutions designed for UAVs will become more and more necessary as their use in military operations grows.

Obstacles in the Market

The AFCR sector still faces many obstacles in spite of its expansion. These difficulties may affect development schedules, expenses, and the general growth of the market.

High Costs of Development and Production

The complexity of AFCR systems necessitates years of study and billions of dollars in funding. They are costly to manufacture and maintain because they require sophisticated electronics and exotic materials. The potential market size may be constrained by these exorbitant expenses, which may act as a deterrent for smaller countries seeking to update their air forces.

RELATED: Empowering Efficiency: Parry Labs Selects Jama Connect^® for Seamless Use, Unparalleled Traceability, and Streamlined Review Cycles

Tough Regulatory Obstacles

The export of sophisticated AFCR systems is strictly regulated since it is a vital military technology. To keep sensitive technology out of the wrong hands, governments enforce stringent regulations. Market expansion may be slowed by these export restrictions and international arms control laws, which can make international trade and cooperation more difficult.

Complexity of System Integration

One of the biggest engineering challenges is integrating a new radar system into an existing aircraft. Aircraft hardware types and avionics interfaces differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, creating interoperability challenges. For the radar to function flawlessly with the aircraft’s other avionics, mission computers, and weapon systems, significant hardware and software adjustments are needed. Program upgrades take longer and cost more because of this complexity.

Prospects for the Future and New Technologies

With ongoing innovation poised to unlock new capabilities, the AFCR market appears to have a bright future.

The shift to multifunction RF systems is among the most exciting developments. Future aircraft will use a single, integrated aperture that can do all of these tasks at once, rather than having distinct systems for communications, radar, and electronic warfare. This will significantly increase an aircraft’s capabilities while decreasing its size, weight, and power consumption.

The creation of distributed and networked radar is another expanding field. This idea uses real-time radar data sharing between various platforms, including fighters, drones, and satellites, to produce a single, complete image of the battlespace. This networked strategy increases the effectiveness and survivability of all friendly assets and makes it nearly impossible for an adversary to hide.

In conclusion, a market ready for innovation

A key component of the contemporary defense sector is the market for airborne fire control radars. The need for more capable and intelligent radar systems will only increase due to technological advancements and the ongoing requirement for air superiority. Despite ongoing regulatory obstacles and exorbitant costs, the industry is progressing. The sky’s eye is growing more potent than before with the introduction of AI-driven cognitive radars, multifunction systems, and networked capabilities, giving pilots the advantage they need to manage the air.

Note: This article was drafted with the aid of AI. Additional content, edits for accuracy, and industry expertise by Mario Maldari, Cary Bryczek, and Decoteau Wilkerson.

Self-Hosted and Cloud: Flexible Deployment Options for Your Requirements Management with Jama Software

Efficient requirements management is vital for the success of any organization, especially in industries like aerospace, defense, and government, where compliance, security, and accuracy are paramount. Jama Software provides a sophisticated and adaptable requirements management solution, ensuring that your teams stay ahead in competitive and highly regulated fields.

But did you know that Jama Connect^® isn’t only available as a cloud solution? Depending on your organization’s unique needs, you can also choose a self-hosted deployment option. This flexibility is the perfect answer for industries requiring strict data sovereignty, air-gapped environments, or regulatory compliance.

While Jama Connect is well-known for our cloud deployment option, we actually originated as a self-hosted product more than twenty years ago. And two decades later, we remain committed to delivering the best platform and customer experience for our self-hosted and cloud customers.

Curious about which deployment option best suits your business? This post will break down when to choose Jama Connect Cloud versus the self-hosted deployment. We’ll also answer frequently asked questions to help you make informed decisions.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution

When to Choose Jama Software Cloud vs. Self-Hosted

Jama Connect Cloud and Jama Connect Self-Hosted both empower effective requirements management. However, certain use cases demand one option over the other.

Jama Connect Cloud

Best for organizations that value ease of deployment, automatic updates, and seamless access. Key benefits include:

• Automatic Updates and Maintenance: Benefit from the latest features and security enhancements without manual effort.
• Anywhere, Anytime Access: Teams can access data on-demand, enabling global collaboration without roadblocks.
• Cost Efficiency: Eliminate the need for large IT infrastructure spendings; we handle hosting for you.
• Geographically Distributed Hosting: To ensure reliability and security, Jama Software hosts data in highly secure and strategic cloud locations. For customers in the US, we host data in Oregon, with a backup in Ohio. For EMEA customers, data will not leave the EU in line with GDPR. Two copies of the data is hosted in Ireland, with a backup in Germany. Jama Connect add-ons – Jama Connect Interchange™ and Jama Connect Advisor™ – can also be hosted in the US or EU.

Ideal for industries like tech startups, mid-sized enterprises, and companies prioritizing agility and scalability in requirements management.

Jama Connect Self-Hosted

Organizations working in highly regulated industries often need tighter control over their data. This deployment ensures robust security and customization on your own infrastructure. Benefits include:

• Data Sovereignty: Maintain control of sensitive data and ensure compliance with local regulations.
• Air-Gapped Environments: Operate without internet connectivity, ideal for sectors like aerospace and defense that mandate offline solutions.
• Regulatory Compliance: Handle development processes under strict standards like ITAR, ECJU, and EAR.

Ideal for industries such as government, aerospace, and defense, where security and compliance are non-negotiable.

Jama Connect Deployment Options

Jama Connect ensures that your needs are met, whether you lean toward cloud solutions or prefer in-house deployment. Here’s how Jama Connect offers robust flexibility in deployment:

Cloud Deployment

Our cloud-based SaaS solution takes the burden of infrastructure management off your shoulders. It ensures faster setup, seamless updates, and scalability as your teams grow. Collaborate easily across distributed teams while we manage the heavy lifting of security and operational efficiency.

Self-Hosted Deployment

Need control down to the last detail? Self-host Jama Connect within your IT infrastructure. This option provides your team with complete autonomy over data, operational configuration, and security measures. Your infrastructure, your rules.

Do you have questions about configuring a self-hosted deployment? Our experts are here to help. Schedule a consultation to explore the best option for your business.

RELATED: Jama Connect Amazon Web Service (AWS) GovCloud US Hosting

FAQ: Common Questions About Jama Software Deployment Options

Still not sure which deployment is right for you? Below are answers to some frequently asked questions.

Is switching between Jama Connect Cloud and Self-Hosted possible?

Yes, we offer migration support to ensure your data transitions smoothly between deployment types when upgrading or restructuring operations.

Do both deployments support compliance with industry standards?

Absolutely! Whether cloud-based or on-premises, Jama Connect supports compliance with requirements like ISO 26262, DO-178C, DO-254, and other critical regulatory standards. Your choice of deployment will not limit compliance functionality.

What level of IT support is required for the self-hosted deployment?

Self-hosted deployments require your organization to manage backups, updates, and server maintenance. However, we provide technical guidance to your IT teams to ensure a smooth setup.

Does the cloud option support multi-location teams?

Yes! With the cloud deployment, all team members, regardless of their geographic location, can work collaboratively without latency or access issues.

What security measures are in place for both deployment options?

• For Cloud: Ongoing updates, SOC2 certification, and AWS GovCloud hosting ensure enterprise-grade security.
• For Self-Hosted: You’ll adhere to your internal security protocols (including CMMC security requirements) and configurations.

Jama Software Provides a Smarter Approach to Requirements Management

When it comes to requirements management, there’s no “one-size-fits-all.” Jama Connect adapts to your unique organizational needs, whether you need a hands-off cloud solution or an air-gapped, team-managed infrastructure.

Experience seamless collaboration, reduce compliance risks, and ensure stakeholder alignment across your organization with Jama Software. Are you ready to optimize your requirements management process?

Explore our deployment options and see how Jama Connect aligns with your vision of compliance, security, and efficiency.

Learn More About Jama Software’s Deployment Options

Ensure your space systems meet industry standards with ease.

The European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS) provides a unified set of standards to streamline space system development and promote interoperability among international agencies. Our customers are leveraging Jama Connect® to comply with ECSS standards, resulting in enhanced collaboration, reduced risk, and mission success in the aerospace industry.

With Jama Connect, you can seamlessly manage these standards while maintaining full traceability and ensuring compliance throughout your projects.

Join us for this engaging webinar with Jama Software^® experts Cary Bryczek – Director of Aerospace & Defense (A&D) Solutions and Martijn Janssen – Senior Solutions Consultant, provide a high-level overview of the ECSS standards, along with best practices for leveraging them within Jama Connect, including:

• ECSS Process workflows and how they align with processes managed within Jama Connect
• Establishing a ECSS Library in Jama Connect to provide a single–source of truth
• Explanation on how to tailor the ECSS requirements and leverage Jama Connect’s Reuse capability

Don’t miss the chance to unlock new efficiencies in your systems engineering processes and ensure your projects stay on track.

Below is an abbreviated transcript of our webinar.

Accelerate Your ECSS Standards Compliance

Cary Bryczek: Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. My name is Cary Bryczek. I’ll be the moderator for today’s webinar, Accelerating Your Compliance with ECSS Standards inside Jama Connect.

I am Cary, the Director of Aerospace and Defense Solutions. I lead up a global team of industry and Jama Connect experts. For today’s webinar, first to speak is Martijn Janssen.

Martijn is a senior consultant at Jama Software. He has been working with PLM and requirements management solutions for over 15 years and is very proficient in not only Jama Connect, but the Siemens Industry Software solutions, as well as PTC Windchill. He currently works on implementing space-related systems such as satellites, launchers, and space-related components in the European Union for our Jama Connect partners. Martijn is a specialist in both systems engineering and information technologies. With that, I’ll pass it over to you, Martijn.

RELATED: Jama Connect^® for Space Systems Datasheet

Martijn Janssen: Well, thank you for the introduction there, Cary. So, welcome everybody to our webinar on ECSS. I’m very excited today to introduce you to the way we manage ECSS standards within Jama Connect. Over the past couple of years, we’ve been working with a lot of customers on managing ECSS standards within our solutions, and today, we’re going to show you some examples on how we manage to do that. So, without further ado, I’m going to go over some of the ECSS standards, what it includes, what the use cases our customers face, and then afterwards, we’ll dive into the system and show you some of those use cases in action in Jama Connect. Let’s dive in to the presentation.

When we talk about ECSS, I presume many of you here already are aware, but for those of you that are not aware of ECSS, ECSS is a European corporation and it’s a collaboration between the ESA, the European Space Agency and many different other space agencies across the world to make sure that we have a single set of standards that we can use across companies working in the European space activities. Many of our customers around the world are looking to those standards, making sure they are compliant to them and working with those standards in different projects and at different levels. So, ECSS is a standard. You can find a lot of information on the website or ESA around the standards. They’re all there to be found if you’re not aware of them already.

The way that ECSS is organized and set up is something you will see in the standards on the website itself, but we also have the organization within our Jama Connect application. So, when we talk about the standards, the standards are divided into branches and disciplines. So, you will find, for example, the different branches on the top level there. So, for example, the space project management branch or the engineering branch, and below those branches, you will find a lot of disciplines detailed out per section and they are numbered in a specific way. Again, when we look into the demo, you will see a lot of those specific annotations come back and we maintain that same structure within Jama Connect.

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Janssen: So many of our customers use a subset or a number of these standards in their Jama Connect application to make sure they are compliant and they are working towards the standards that ESA has set for these specific projects. So, the main structure in here is recognizable towards what is on the website and in the organization of ECSS. Outside of the actual organization of the disciplines and the branches, the disciplines themselves are even further, let’s say, detailed in documents and all these documents fall into one of those disciplines. So, for example, when we look at the discipline system engineering, you can see a large number of documents below that talking about different topics.

So, for example, on testing, on verification, on referencing, coordinate systems, all kinds of documents describing the standard, what you need to do to be compliant towards those standards. Now these documents are pulled into Jama Connect, and as you will see later on, we have all these documents available for you to start tracking and tracing compliance. So, the structure from a branch to a discipline to all the documents is something that you will recognize in the demo later on and where you can find and filter and search for certain topics that are numbered and maintained by the ESA. All right. So, that’s a little bit of a background behind the ECSS organizational diagram.

To watch the entire webinar, visit:

Accelerate Your ECSS Standards Compliance with Jama Connect^®

In this blog, we recap The New ARP4754B and Techniques in Jama Connect for Airborne Systems Whitepaper.

The New ARP4754B and Techniques in Jama Connect^® for Airborne Systems

ARP4754B, released on December 20, 2023, is a standard from SAE International that provides recommendations for the development of civil aircraft and systems, focusing on ensuring safety and compliance with regulations. It covers the entire aircraft development cycle, from system requirements through verification and validation. The latest revision includes new methods for safety analysis, such as Model-Based Safety Analysis (MBSA) and Cascading Effects Analysis (CEA). It is mandatory for all aircraft and systems worldwide, including emerging eVTOLs and UAVs, to demonstrate compliance with aviation regulations. This guideline aligns with ARP4761A, which was released on the same date, for safety assessment processes and offers increased flexibility in selecting validation and verification methods.

ARP4754B Applied in Jama Connect for Airborne Systems

ARP4754B and ARP4761A are both crucial guidelines, and the alignment between the two new versions has been enhanced to streamline development and safety assessments. In addition to the inclusion of the two new safety analysis methods, ARP4754B now places a stronger emphasis on identifying and mitigating unintended behaviors. It now includes consensus methods for demonstrating compliance within the development planning process and has also enhanced its flexibility in validation and verification.

Jama Connect can be used throughout the system development process as the primary system to manage the requirements and full product traceability. Figure 1 from ARP4754B outlines the relationships between the lifecycle and integral processes, which provide guidelines for safety assessment, electronic hardware and software lifecycle processes, and the system development process described herein.

There are always numerous ways to tailor the use of Jama Connect. Here’s how the updates to ARP4754B influence requirements management and how our Airborne solution is pre-configured to support them.

1: Adoption of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)

• MBSE Integration: Updates encourage the use of MBSE to handle the increasing complexity of aircraft systems.
• Modeling Languages: Use of modeling languages like SysML to create detailed system models that include requirements, behavior, and structure.

Jama Connect for Airborne Systems Model-Based Techniques

• Model-Driven Requirements: Requirements are captured and managed within the Jama Connect data model, providing requirements management techniques that support model-based representations. The Solution comes pre-configured with element types that correspond to the levels of requirements called out in ARP4754B, function elements, WBS, verifications and validations, and safety-related elements. Jama Connect constrains the data to follow the traceability rules which enable rapid analysis, automated trace matrix generation, and querying and reporting.

• Synchronization of Models and Textual Requirements: Ensuring consistency between textual requirements and model-based representations requires synchronization mechanisms. Jama Connect is often used in conjunction with SysML tools and all leading vendors offer native integrations.

Figure 2: Model-based elements replace documents and the Jama Connect for Airborne Systems’ traceability schema maintains consistency.

RELATED: A Path to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) with Jama Connect

2. Enhanced Integration of Safety and Requirements Management

• Safety-Driven Requirements: The updates emphasize integrating safety assessments directly into the requirements management process. This means that safety considerations become a foundational aspect of requirement definition and management.
• Iterative Feedback Loop: There is a stronger focus on creating an iterative process where safety analysis results inform requirement updates, and changes in requirements trigger reassessment of safety analyses.

Jama Connect for Airborne Systems Safety & Requirements Management Techniques:

• Traceable Within the Model: The outputs from safety analyses are captured and managed directly in Jama Connect. Our Airborne Systems solution provides the data model for a consistent trace and data strategy between safety, requirements, and tests.
• Requirements Annotation: Requirements have built-in attributes for safety-related information, such as hazard classifications and safety integrity levels.
• Tool Integration: Jama Connect integrates seamlessly with safety analysis tools such as ANSYS Medini, the LDRA tool suite and others to ensure seamless data flow and traceability between safety assessments and requirements.

Figure 3: Jama Connect for Airborne Systems solution on the left and SAE ARP4754B (page 102) on the right.

RELATED: Cybersecurity in the Air: Addressing Modern Threats with DO-326A

3. Improved Traceability Requirements

• Bidirectional Traceability: Enhanced emphasis on maintaining bidirectional traceability between requirements, design artifacts, implementation, and verification activities.
• Traceability to Safety Objectives: Requirements must be directly linked to safety objectives and hazard analyses derived from updated safety assessment processes.

Jama Connect for Airborne Systems Solution Techniques:

• Robust Traceability Matrices: The solution comes preconfigured with views and filters required by ARP4754B. These sophisticated traceability matrices that map requirements to design elements, test cases, and safety analyses are also exportable. The Airborne Systems solution has out-of-the-box export templates that can also be tailored.
• Automated Traceability: Instead of authoring content and then creating a trace to its related content after the fact, use the “Add Related” functionality built into Jama Connect. This use of automated trace creation to manage traceability reduces the risk of human error and improves efficiency.

Figure 4: Constrained set of data choices ensures users create consistent traces.

We’ve shared 3 of the 6 ways Jama Connect’s Airborne Solution supports ARP4754B influence requirements management.
Want the full picture? Download the whitepaper to explore them all!

The New ARP4754B and Techniques in Jama Connect for Airborne Systems Whitepaper

In this blog, we recap our webinar, “The New ARP4754B: Tips for Engineers & Quality Teams” – Click HERE to watch it in its entirety.

Navigating the updates to ARP4754B can be challenging.

Understanding new safety analysis methods, validation and verification flexibility, and strategies to mitigate unintended behaviors is crucial for advancing aerospace development and ensuring compliance.

Join us as Cary Bryczek, Director of Aerospace and Defense Solutions at Jama Software, shares practical tips for engineers and quality teams to navigate the most impactful changes in ARP4754B.

Gain Insights On:

• Changes from ARP4754A to ARP4754B
• Model-Based Safety Analysis (MBSA) and Cascading effects Analysis (CEA)
• Identifying and mitigating unintended system behaviors
• Tying your safety analyses to requirements in Jama Connect
• The updates to verification and validation methods

Below is an abbreviated transcript and a recording of our webinar.

The video above is a preview of this webinar – Click HERE to watch it in its entirety!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

The New ARP4754B: Tips for Engineers & Quality Teams

Cary Bryczek: We’re going to have fun talking about the changes from ARP4754B revision A to revision B. We’ll spend some time a little bit more deeply on its emphasis on model-based design and safety. I’ll talk about enhanced integration of safety and requirements management and some of the changes to validation and verification. At the end, we’ll have some time for Q&A.

A quick refresher on what ARP4754B is. Its title is Guidelines for Development of Civil Aircraft. It’s an industry guideline developed by SAE International that provides recommended practices for the development of complex civil aircraft and systems. It outlines a structured systems engineering process for the integrating of hardware, software, and human factors to ensure safety, reliability, and performance across the system lifecycle. The document emphasizes traceability, verification, and validation from initial concept through to certification with a strong focus on meeting regulatory safety and design assurance standards.

ARP4754B also aligns and is used in conjunction with other key aerospace standards like DO-178C and DO-254 offering detailed guidance on how to meet safety and certification requirements in the context of modern integrated aircraft systems. ARP4754 revision B is meant to expedite consistency with ARP4761 revision A, the safety assessment process, which was it was released on the same day in December of 2023.

The guideline describes generic aircraft system development process, which establishes a framework for discussing the process. ARP4754B doesn’t imply a preferred method or process, nor does it imply a specific organizational structure. At its simplest, it emphasizes the flow down of intended aircraft function through the system requirements management process and allocation of function to systems, subsystems, and hardware and software items.

Integral processes in the context of 4754B refer to key processes that are interwoven throughout the entire development lifecycle of aerospace systems from concept to design, integration, verification, and certification. Now, these processes ensure that various engineering disciplines, your systems engineering teams, your hardware and software engineering safety are fully integrated, aligned, and contribute to the overall success of the project.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Aerospace

Bryczek: This diagram from 4754B outlines the key stages of the aircraft system development process and provides a framework for understanding how safety is integrated into each stage. The safety are the ones that are in the lightest white or gray. The standard approach ensures that the safety risks are identified, analyzed, and mitigated early in the design process, and are continuously assessed throughout the system lifecycle.

I want to point out that lifecycle phases really are iterative and independent. 4754B emphasizes that the phases of system development aren’t strictly linear. For example, design and development may loop back to earlier phases such as the requirement’s definition. If issues are found during those later stages, sort of this iterative approach ensures that safety concerns can be identified and corrected throughout the lifecycle.

You’ll also notice that safety and hazard analysis is integrated throughout the development phases. Safety assessments are continuous activities throughout the development process. Safety considerations such as your functional hazard assessments, your fault tree analysis to your cascading effects analysis are embedded within multiple phases, particularly the design, development, and verification phases.

Let’s get to the meat of what has changed. So ARP4754B builds on the foundation laid by 4754A but offers a much more structured, detailed, and modern approach to developing complex aerospace systems. This is in response to the increasing complexity of our modern aircraft, tighter safety requirements, and evolving certification processes, particularly the need for rigorous system integration, traceability, and safety assessment practices. It provides greater clarity around the development assurance levels and how they relate to the overall system and safety requirements.

RELATED: Jama Connect Airborne Systems

Bryczek: While A provided a basic framework, B refines the application of DALs throughout the system lifecycle. B expands the understanding of development assurance levels in the context of aircraft and system development, and it places a greater emphasis on safety, traceability, and integration across the lifecycle stages. The updated standard provides a more comprehensive guidance on managing the DALs and aligning the safety assessments with the system requirements, and it ensures that development processes are rigorous enough to meet the increasing complexity of the modern aircraft systems.

With the increased use of model-based techniques, 4754B highlights the benefits of using models to perform safety assessments. It recognizes that simulation-based safety analysis can help engineers assess the safety of complex integrated systems much more efficiently by modeling different failure scenarios and responses, so the standard supports using simulation tools to model those failure scenarios and validate the robustness of safety-critical systems. And this all just improves the accuracy of safety analysis, and it helps identify the potential issues earlier in the design process.

THIS HAS BEEN A PREVIEW OF OUR WEBINAR, WATCH IT IN ITS ENTIRETY:
The New ARP4754B: Tips for Engineers & Quality Teams

In this blog, we’ll recap our recent webinar, “Elevating MBSE with SysML: Jama Connect® and CATIA Magic in Action” – Click HERE to watch it in its entirety.

Elevating MBSE with SysML: Jama Connect^® and CATIA Magic in Action

What happens when Jama Software^®’s Traceable MBSE™ combines with Dassault Systèmes’ enterprise and system architecture modeling expertise in systems engineering?
This powerful and intuitive integration between CATIA/Cameo Systems Modeler and Jama Connect^® aligns business and engineering, bridging the gap between requirements management, system architecture, design, and product management.

This engaging webinar features Cary Bryczek – Jama Software and Saulius Pavalkis – Dassault Systèmes as they discuss the intersection of this technology and give a live demonstration.

What you’ll gain:

• Key trends shaping the future of MBSE across the aerospace & defense industry
• Challenges keeping Systems Engineers up at night
• The impact of Jama Connect Traceable MBSE in defense applications
• How Cameo Systems Engineering enhances system architecture
• A live demonstration of Cameo DataHub’s integration with Jama Connect

Don’t miss this opportunity to see how this integration can transform your MBSE approach, driving success from concept to deployment.

Below is an abbreviated transcript of our webinar.

Cary Bryczek: To kick things off, I want to set the stage with some trends across the aerospace and defense industry that we’re seeing. I’ll talk about how those trends are creating challenges for chief engineers and describing what keeps them up at night, then I’ll set the stage for Saulius’s presentation by showing you what Jama Connect’s Traceable MBSE looks like and how it’s designed to solve those challenges. Saulius is going to take you on a deeper dive to show you how system models and Jama Connect interoperate.

So in the aerospace and defense industry, we are developing a new system that has complexity that far exceeds commercial product development. For example, the FAA’s program to develop the Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management system involves not just a pilot and drone, but is designed to enable autonomous and semi-autonomous operation of multiple air systems, including the passenger and cargo delivery, in a really tightly integrated civil airspace. The elements in blue on the diagram are all distinct systems of their own, and the new traffic management system needs to integrate communications and data across all of those systems to provide this new capability.

In the highly constrained environment of outer space, for example, NASA’s Cislunar and I’m pretty sure the Artemis programs are focusing on the operation and survivability of autonomous systems. To develop a space system, NASA doesn’t do this in their own silo, but they have lots and lots of contracts and companies that they work with deliver parts of the system, just like in the DoD. For example, you have Blue Origin. They are developing a friction stir additive manufacturing part of the system in partnership with Langley, right? You have Redwire out of Erie, Colorado. They are developing another in-space manufacturing system. You have Canopy out of Denver. Colorado seems to be a popular place for space. They’re developing low-cost reusable thermal protection systems, right? And there’s really dozens more. The Cislunar and the Artemis programs are developing ecosystems and the ecosystems of those partners, right?

In the government agencies and aerospace and defense companies, they’re always evolving their strategies to be able to deal with this high degree of complexity to help streamline their engineering processes. For example, the DoD, they have published a new adaptive acquisition framework. So even not just in the engineering parts of it but the acquisition parts of it as well, there’s a new framework. This particular pathway is intended for large-scale traditional hardware acquisitions to help facilitate rapid and iterative delivery, like what the software capability programs are doing.

In 2018, we had the Digital Engineering Strategy outlining a vision to modernize how DoD designs develops, delivers, operates, and even sustains systems, right? By connecting people and process and data and developing these end-to-end digital enterprises.

The International Council on Systems Engineering, their Vision 2035 is intended to guide and inspire the strategic direction of systems engineering for the global systems engineering community, right?

The DoD’s Systems Engineering and Architecture group within the DoD itself is focusing on modernizing the systems engineering practice and they’re leveraging the capabilities coming out of SERC and MOSA to build systems that can be upgraded to incorporate new technology and respond to emerging threats, right?

With this new modernization of the SE approach, and now I know this is sort of an eye chart, you guys can look at it after the fact, the DoD has moved away from visualizing its process using that shape of the V model in favor of what more realistically takes place from a process standpoint, which is that modern systems engineering is highly cyclic in nature. Now, the outermost ring is as close to what the old V model, where concept definition is in the upper left, moves to system definition through architecture and design, over to V&V, and back around to start the next cycle. What’s important is that there’s a strong emphasis on measuring not just the system being built, but the process to build that system and that data and models are at the heart of it all. To the fullest extent, models should be used in favor of documents and data should inform the decision-making.

There really is a challenge to using a data-driven approach in the models. The DoD, I love this quote, “There’s a lack of an integrated approach to implementing systems engineering focus areas that’s creating a delay in implementing the digital transformation, which is necessary to ensure relevant guidance, skills, and training are available to deliver a disciplined approach to acquiring a weapon system.” Continuing to use legacy tools and approaches is what making integrated approaches gravely difficult. What’s necessary is to take a federated approach to data across the tool ecosystem and use tools with robust APIs, modern architectures that are standards-based. An MBSE approach requires an integrated approach to connect that system model’s architecture and requirements to program teams and software and hardware teams. It doesn’t mean using a siloed system modeling tool and expect those teams to be able to consume and understand that model. In fact, kind of what I hear a lot is, “How do I achieve the benefits of MBSE when no other engineers can access model parameters they need to use to make downstream decision-making, and how do I make decisions on tests and other things that’s downstream from the system model?” I hear that quite a lot.

RELATED: A Path to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) with Jama Connect^®

Bryczek: Those with technical oversight and responsibility for program success who are executing MBSE or even just traditional systems engineering commonly raise these following questions. This is what I think keeps chief engineers up at night. “How do I know if the architecture and system requirements are satisfying all the needs?” “How do I know if a change in the architecture will impact those needs?” “How do I know if a change in the architecture will impact hardware or software teams?” And, “How do I streamline model design reviews?” I have a fourth one, too, “How do I detect unallocated systems architecture and requirements that sort of transcends the system model area and goes into the software models and the hardware models?” So that’s another favorite that I have.

So these questions really, we think, can be answered using what we term Traceable MBSE. The reality at most companies is that the end-to-end systems development processes is fragmented into domain-specific tools and spreadsheets that really don’t have a lot of collaboration or any, and this leads to fragmented requirements traceability and requires significant manual effort through emails and meetings and maybe even luck to try and prevent delays, defects, rework, cost overruns, right? Most companies have come to accept this situation as an unchangeable reality given the lack of a single platform to enable this entire process, nor a method to integrate spreadsheets and desktop tools. Using Traceable MBSE, the system model in the modeling tool is joined with the Jama Connect model. Jama [Connect] is continually calculating traceability and coverage and provides scores that can be used to identify high-risk areas that can be drilled into to determine corrective actions, the system model can detect those changes, and the modeling engineers can take corrective action.

Keep in mind that model-based systems engineering is more than using the power of SysML. It is powerful. Systems engineering’s superpower to enable digital transformation comes when it’s able to connect to the entire development effort and facilitate software and mechanical teams with the ability to align their efforts to the system model, systems engineers being able to manage the state of development across the disciplines and automatically identifying risks through all stages of development.

So let’s maybe see what this looks like in Jama [Connect.] This is Jama Connect in a web browser. I’m showing a Traceable MBSE project for development of a cube set. In it, I’m managing the end-to-end development of the program mission goals and objectives, stakeholder needs, concept of operations, system requirements, subsystems, software and hardware requirements, architecture, safety risks, verification and validation, and even user stories from Jira. Jama [Connect] is going to provide that measurable end-to-end traceability for all of their elements. Their version control and baselines provide design, review, and approval, plus make the data visible onto a series of dashboards.

All the interactions with Jama [Connect] are done in this web browser. Just to give you a little bit of navigation overview, if you’ve never seen Jama [Connect], you can see the data. You can organize the data pretty much however you want. You’re not constrained to how you want to call the data. Want to look inside stuff, you can open up and look inside the dashboards. The series of dashboards can be laid out however you want. You can have multiple dashboards. So this is my main one. I want to see a trace exception dashboard, I’m able to just organize them how I want, surface up that information. And they’re live too, so if I wanted to go and look at what any of these are, show me my objectives, needs, or goals, I can just click on them and it takes me pretty much right to where I want to be.

One of the things that makes Jama [Connect] special is the ability to define a data model for the information that you’re going to be managing in the model or the Jama [Connect] project and define how the traces are related together. And then our Live Trace Explorer™ is used to show real-time progress against expected traceability. So I open up my Live Trace Explorer for this particular project. The Live Trace Explorer is used to show the real-time state of progress of all of the items that are being managed in the system against the expected traceability according to those rule sets. When integrated with system modeling tools, like managing architecture, Jira managing the flow of tasks, using Live Trace Explorer, you can obtain this holistic view of quality across your entire system development and software factory process.

So this left-hand side shows requirements coverage and the right-hand side of the Live Trace Explorer shows test coverage, similar to a V model. Here you can see the program system-level requirements. So here we scroll down, we have the program system level requirements and all of the relationships established for traceability. This is based on the project’s traceability rule set, remember? Your project might use different names than what you see here. You’re not really constrained to using what comes out-of-the-box Jama [Connect] at all.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Aerospace

Bryczek: The Trace Explorer in the upper right, this Trace Score™ shows an overall traceability score for your project that you can use to gauge how quality changes, hopefully improves over time. So all of these metrics are real-time from what’s happening right now, and so 64% traceability, this is probably maybe early to midstream in development. We’re still seeing people still establishing traceability, right? But by increasing your traceability score, we really hope to reduce the risk of defects, cost overruns, and delays.

So what about some of those questions that keep chief engineers and program managers up at night? What about the ones that we were asked about? So question one is, “How do I know if architecture and system requirements are satisfying all the needs?” This is tracked in our Live Trace Explorer as a percentage of coverage between the linkages. So here we see a 55% coverage between these stakeholder expectations, which we have 36 stakeholder expectations, so 55% traceability established so far between those. And we only have, and if you scroll down, if you want to see what the architecture is, the architecture, we only have 50% coverage between the architecture and requirements.

So what about, “How do I know if a change in architecture is going to impact testing”? You can really easily see that here, the changes between what’s happening to testing. You can even see a percentage of the suspect changes. So right now, I might’ve already changed some of the requirements of your architecture. 11% is showing suspect. Right now, I don’t have a lot of test plan coverage. Still kind of in the early phases as well.

What about the third question, “How do I know if a change in architecture will impact hardware or software teams?” Right? Again, you can easily see any of the downstream traces to different things. And this is live, too, so if I wanted to see exactly, show me those objects, I can just click, it’s all interactive, and see exactly what the traceability between architecture and system requirements look like. I want to add more information to the view, maybe I want to see what the rationale is or the status, I can add that kind of view really super easily to my view. Jama [Connect] is really designed to make it easy for anyone to come in, understand what’s going on in the program, click and see instant traceability based on what you’re looking at.

So another question is, “How do I detect unallocated system architecture and requirements?” Unallocated activity can be used by running a query. So I have a filter that says, “Show me all of the unallocated architecture.” So I have four architectural elements that have no traces for requirements, and if I turn my trace view on, you can see these are just standalone objects. There’s no traceability either up or downstream to requirements of any kind. We really want to make this as easy as possible, as powerful as possible for people to measure in real time what does their traceability look like, how do I use traceability to effectively enhance the process and remediate actions before they might possibly happen.

So in summary, as systems development continues to increase in velocity, engineering leaders and program managers really need answers to those really tough questions. System modeling tools alone don’t easily provide that. With Jama [Connect]’s Live Trace Explorer, this is providing that real-time traceability score. Our approach for managing and controlling process is using actual data. Jama [Connect] is really the only one that can provide that holistic view. Very exciting.

And now, Saulius would love to show us how Dassault is connecting Jama [Connect] and CATIA Magic.

RELATED: Jama Connect^® for Traceable MBSE™

Saulius Pavalkis: So you saw the Jama [Connect]site. Now we’ll talk about the integration part with CATIA Magic leading SysML and MBSE solution for system architecture. So what is the reason, what is the differentiator, why it is the leading solution? So this was first product to support SysML v1, and pretty much all the versions from that was supported with the complete standard, following already for almost 20 years, as we can see, of the SysML appearance. Now we’ll be working on SysML v2, which will be another evolution and, again, the same goals. We became de facto standard for the many different project types in the industry, and pretty much the quality and scalability of the product and strict following of the standard enabled that. You can’t support all the big clients with the custom solutions unless you will follow some standard approach which allows to customize for each specific one later on.

And that brings us to our core values. So it is completely open. Also, as we will see here also from OpenAPI side, because that enabled us integrate in the proper way with the requirement management solution, Jama Software.

Standard compliance, another big deal because if you support the standard, maybe it is a bit harder than to integrate specifically for specific needs, right? But once you follow that, it’ll apply for all the different purposes, plus it will be clear which part of the integration needs to be updated with the standard update and with the tool development, which is not the case when you don’t follow the standards, right?

Efficiency and user-friendliness, ability to customize, and that’s like one of the most significant values because again, if you follow the standard, you get the 90% for the industry needs, but then you need to customize for specific industry, like what type of the data you want, as you saw in the Jama [Connect], you can select data set, what’s needed for specific project, have ability to create your own data set and then synchronize only on that data set and work on that model.

We support mostly system engineering community needs, and that is pretty much 90% or something of the product, because standard compliance is one thing, but then actually system engineering to enable better results with the model than PowerPoint, better tables and data management, and Excel is the key differentiator when you want to work with the model sufficiently.

The big part is continuity to disciplines. As you saw, traceability is big part of the Jama Software solution. Same for us, we dedicate most the attention for these integrations with the rest of the ecosystem. This is perhaps one of the most popular integrations, maybe the most popular integrations which we have. But in general, these are disciplines in engineering and analysis.

And also system engineering life cycle, as Cary mentioned, design reviews, this is very important process. Every organization goes through it and also in collaboration with suppliers, and that’s technically insight but also other processes which requires formal process with the approvals and baselines.

So talking about this integration specifically, we are using DataHub as integration framework. What are the highlights? It comes as a plugin actually for CATIA Magic. It’s built in in CATIA Magic. And this integration is also not an exception. It’s using this major integration framework, which is mostly for requirement tools integration. One of the most used integrations which we have is actually requirement management tools, and the most useful integration, used integration likely will be Jama Software integration from requirements management side. It provides similar experience for all the integrations and already set up operations which are common for the users, not to expect some surprises, but it is also redesigned to be more optimal, more user-friendly, and supports the standards like OSLC v2, but in our case, we are using direct API to Jama Connect, which is always the best case when you have ability to leverage that, and that shows again the openness of Jama Software and CATIA Magic.

RELATED: Empowering Efficiency: Parry Labs Selects Jama Connect^® for Seamless Use, Unparalleled Traceability, and Streamlined Review Cycles

Pavalkis: The workflow is very simple, so pretty much you connect the data source to Jama [Connect]. Jama [Connect] can be on the cloud, on premises. You select the scope for the synchronization. We support only one operation, copy and synchronize, which is by far the most popular one from all the experience we have. We then select the mapping based on the data sets selected, you know, could be new requirement types, could be new relations and so, and then we synchronize, first of all, by copying the data, but later on by checking changes, seeing the changes available and acting on those changes, synchronizing and acting on those changes with suspect links in our site. And also, on top of that, we support diagrams as an image interchange, which is a big deal because then you can actually work independently without all these requiring to see another solution for the part of the data.

Now, when we work together, what are the key connection highlights? So we support advanced authentication methods, simple authentication, and OAuth 2.0. On project selection, we select the data which will be available, what type of data will be available, and that data will allow us to map just to those elements from Jama Software type and see them synchronized to CATIA Magic using DataHub. As you can see here, we have this Cameo DataHub view in CATIA Magic, Cameo, and it is based on the same selected data in Jama Software for the project, right? And then you can see it with the icons with the exact representation that allows you to have the seamless interface.

The leverage, the same dedicated UI for identifying changes, what’s new, what is modified, move, delete it out of scope, and this allows us to see the change before synchronizing, so you can even apply element-by-element synchronization and, based on the direction of synchronization, you can choose one or another way to synchronize, which is always good to choose in advance not to have the conflicts on the authoritative source of truth.

We have number of items, type of elements in Jama Software which we synchronize. You can see the full list. It’s far more than just requirement, the different other types of attachments and so on. We allow, as I said before, to import the images to CATIA Magic and from CATIA Magic export diagrams as images to Jama, which allows you to review the diagrams in Jama Software and also see the architecture views from Jama Software and CATIA Magic and act on them.

To watch the webinar and see the demonstration of this integration, please visit:
Elevating MBSE with SysML: Jama Connect^® and CATIA Magic in Action

SysML is Not Enough: Why You Still Need a Requirements Management Tool

All engineering process models (Agile, waterfall, spiral development, V-model, concurrent engineering, iterative…) describe managing requirements as the most critical key to success. Well-understood requirements provide a single connection point for communication across the engineering teams. Using a Systems Modeling Language (SysML) tool alone to manage requirements instantly creates a silo between engineering teams.

Requirements, tests, architectures, and risks are utilized by every stakeholder when developing a new product or building or modernizing a new system. Customers generate needs and requirements and care what the development status of those are and whether the development team is following the necessary process especially if it requires contract adherence or must meet regulatory laws or industry standards.

Software, hardware, and testing teams also access requirements to be able to analyze, develop, and test. Additionally, they are creating requirements at their given subsystem level too.

Systems Engineers work across all levels of requirements and coordinate the other engineering disciplines. NASA best describes it as, “Systems engineering is a holistic, integrative discipline, wherein the contributions of structural engineers, electrical engineers, mechanism designers, power engineers, human factors engineers, and many more disciplines are evaluated and balanced, one against another, to produce a coherent whole that is not dominated by the perspective of a single discipline.” – NASA

As you can imagine functionality such as configuration management of requirements, traceability between needs, requirements, tests, risks, and architecture are necessary. Systems engineers have been using various tools and even manual techniques for decades to do this.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution

The Advertised Purpose of SysML

SysML is a graphical modeling language that is used within some systems modeling tools (such as Dassault’s Catia Nomagic) that enables systems engineers to perform “engineering” of the system. SysML “supports the specification, analysis, design, verification, and validation of a broad range of systems and systems-of-systems.” – Wikipedia

SysML is only a decade old; already a new, more complex version has recently been released; and SysML is yet to be widely adopted. It is widely thought to hold promise for the discipline of model-based systems engineering (MBSE). It is not the only language in use for MBSE though; LML and OPM are examples of modeling languages too, being used within other systems modeling tools.

However, a SysML model is difficult even for those trained in the language. Some indicate the learning curve is steep and the mechanics in the tools are difficult as cited in a recent article by Technology Strategy Partners. Additionally, the variety of tools that support SysML don’t consider themselves as a replacement for a true requirements management tool either. Capabilities from a dedicated requirements management tool such as Jama Connect have built-in collaboration, configuration management, baselines, managing traceability across multiple levels of objects, managing the verification and validation activities, controlling access and change to objects using role-based permissions, and showing real-time workflow states at the object level.

“What SysML lacks is its usage during key Systems Engineering (SE) phases like detail design or implementation phases wherein specific solutions like CAD, Software coding or network design for embedded systems are used,” said Kiran Jacob, Dassault Systems.

Also challenging is usage by software teams during later-stage design phases. Communication of the model (its requirements) becomes critical when needing to validate requirements with the customer, with product managers, and with other engineering disciplines outside of the SysML Scribe (tool jockey). The greater responsibility of the systems engineer as a cross-disciplined communicator requires the use of tools outside of the SysML tool to communicate. Effective communication of requirements is best represented in dedicated requirements management tools.

RELATED: Traceable Agile™ – Speed AND Quality Are Possible for Software Factories in Safety-critical Industries

Conclusion

In conclusion, while SysML and other modeling languages offer significant promise for the discipline of model-based systems engineering, they are not without their challenges. The complexity of SysML, along with its steep learning curve and the limitations of the tools supporting it, often hinders its effectiveness in later stages of design and implementation. As such, relying solely on SysML can create silos within engineering teams, impeding the critical communication and coordination necessary for successful systems engineering.

Effective requirements management remains the cornerstone of any engineering process, ensuring all stakeholders — from customers to software and hardware teams — are aligned and informed. Dedicated requirements management tools, such as Jama Connect, offer robust features like collaboration, configuration management, and traceability, which are essential for managing the multifaceted aspects of modern engineering projects. These tools facilitate clear communication of requirements, verification, and validation activities across all engineering disciplines, thereby supporting the holistic, integrative approach championed by systems engineering.

Ultimately, the synergy between specialized requirements management tools and SysML can provide a comprehensive solution, leveraging the strengths of both to enhance the efficiency and success of engineering projects. As the field continues to evolve, adopting a balanced approach that incorporates the best practices and tools from both domains will be key to navigating the complexities of modern systems engineering.

In this blog, we recap our webinar, “Bridging ALM and MBSE: Strategies for Seamless Integration” – Click HERE to watch it in its entirety.

Integrate Jama Connect^® and Sparx Systems’ Enterprise Architect (EA) using LemonTree.Connect to align business and engineering objectives.

Join our experts Philipp Kalenda, Head of Consulting & Training at LieberLieber and Cary Bryczek, Director of Solution Architecture at Jama Software ^® to discover how this powerful collaboration eliminates the gap between requirements engineering, system architecture, design, and product management.

You will gain a thorough understanding of these topics and more:

• How Jama Connect^®’s Live Traceability™ capabilities allow for seamless integration across best-of-breed tools.
• How leveraging Jama Connect Traceable MBSE™ can act as a starting point for your MBSE efforts.
• How to create a workflow for deriving systems architecture based on requirements from Jama Connect.
• How LemonTree.Connect enables standard engineering domain practices for configuration management.
• How to facilitate streamlined evidence that proves your architecture is satisfying requirements.

Below is a preview of our webinar. Click HERE to watch it in its entirety.

The following is an abbreviated transcript of our webinar.

Bridging ALM and MBSE: Strategies for Seamless Integration

Cary Bryczek: My name is Cary Bryczek. I’m the Director of Aerospace & Defense Solutions here at Jama Software. I’m really looking forward to speaking with you today on this particular topic and looking forward to Philipp’s presentation as well. So to kick things off, we are going to set … I just want to set the stage with some trends across the A&D industry that we’re seeing. I’ll talk about how those trends are creating challenges for chief engineers and describe what’s keeping them up at night. Then I’ll set the stage for Philipp’s presentation by showing you what Jama Connect’s Traceable MBSE™ looks like and how that’s designed to solve some of those challenges, and Philipp’s going to definitely take you on a deeper dive to show you how system models in Jama Connect interoperate.

In the aerospace and defense industry, developing a new system has a complexity that far exceeds commercial product development. For example, the FAA’s program to develop the unmanned aircraft traffic management system involves not just the pilot and his drone but is designed to enable autonomous and semi-autonomous operation of multiple aerial systems, including passenger and cargo delivery in a tightly integrated civil aerospace. The elements in blue that you see are all distinct systems of their own, and the new traffic management system needs to be able to integrate communications and data across all of those systems to provide this new capability.

In the highly constrained environment of outer space, NASA’s Cislunar and the Artemis program, for example, are focusing on the operation and survivability of autonomous systems. To develop a space system, NASA does not do this alone but has many contracts with companies to deliver parts of the system. For example, Blue Origin, they have two programs like the Friction Stir Additive Manufacturing Program and the Metallic Thermal Protection System are two examples of just parts of the system.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Aerospace

Bryczek: Canopy Aerospace, they’re developing a low-cost reusable thermal protection system. Roccor AKA Redwire in Erie, Colorado, they’re developing a characterization of high aspect ratio booms for these large apertures and so many more. This ecosystem of partners and contributing to a whole brings its own challenges to the pool when trying to collaborate, share data, and execute common systems engineering processes. Like the NASA’s Cislunar and Artemis initiatives for space exploration, they’re focusing on operation and survivability.

In the defense domain, we’re seeing all sorts of cases in unmanned aerial systems as well to aid tactical situations and help with strategic planning. The underlying theme of these large systems is the integration and the collaborative approaches to developing these different weapon systems and aerospace systems in very constrained environments.

So from a strategy perspective, what are these agencies trying to really do? Government agencies and aerospace and defense companies are always evolving their strategies to be able to deal with this complexity and to help streamline their engineering processes. For example, the Department of Defense (DOD) has published a new adaptive acquisition framework. This pathway is intended for large-scale traditional hardware acquisitions to facilitate rapid and iterative development and delivery of software capability to the user.

RELATED: Traceable Agile™ – Speed AND Quality Are Possible for Software Factories in Safety-critical Industries

Bryczek: In 2018, the Digital Engineering strategy outlines a vision to modernize how the department designs, develops, delivers, and operates, as well as sustains systems securely and safely. Their vision is to connect people, processes, data, and capabilities across an end-to-end digital enterprise. The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) published its recent Vision 2035 document, and it is intended to inspire and guide the strategic direction of systems engineering, the practice of systems engineering for the global systems community.

MOSA, the Modular Open Systems Approach, it uses a system architecture that allows major subsystem components at the appropriate level to be incrementally added, removed, and replaced throughout the lifecycle of the major system. The DOD’s systems engineering and architecture group is focusing on modernizing the systems engineering practice. They’re leveraging capabilities from CERC. They’re using MOSA to build systems that can be upgraded and to incorporate new technology faster to respond to emerging threats.

When we look at this in a little bit larger view with this new modernization of the systems engineering approach, the DOD has moved away from visualizing its process using a V model in favor of what truly takes place from a process standpoint, which is that modern systems engineering is highly cyclic. You can see the outermost ring is as close to that old V model, where a concept definition is in the upper right, it moves the system definition through architecture and design and over to V & V and back-to-start around on the next cycle.

What’s important is that there’s a strong emphasis on measuring not just the system being built, but the process that’s building the system, your system’s engineering process and that data and models are at the heart of it all. To the fullest extent, models should be used in favor of documents and data should inform decision-making.

What is the industry saying? There’s a challenge to using data-driven approaches and models. The DOD has highlighted there’s a lack of an integrated approach to the implementation of these systems engineering focus areas, and it’s creating a delay in the full implementation of the digital transformation, which is necessary to ensure relevant guidance and skills.

RELATED: Leading Ground-to-Air Communications Systems Developer Indra Park Air Takes Off with Jama Connect^®

Bryczek: Continuing to use legacy tools and approaches is what is making integrated approaches not possible. What is necessary is to take a federated approach to data across the tool ecosystem and to use tools with more robust APIs, and modern architectures that are standards-based. An MBSE approach requires an integrated approach to connect the system models, architecture, and requirements to the program teams the software teams, and the hardware teams. It doesn’t mean to use a siloed system modeling tool and expect those teams to be able to consume and understand that model.

What we hear quite often is, “How do I achieve the benefits of MBSE when no other engineers can access model parameters that they need for downstream decision-making?” Those with technical oversight, chief engineers who have technical oversight and responsibility for program success, executing MBSE, or even just traditional systems engineering commonly raise the following questions, “How do I know if the architecture and system requirements are satisfying all the needs? How do I know if a change in the architecture will impact testing? How do I know if a change in the architecture will impact downstream hardware or software teams? How do I detect unallocated systems architecture and requirements?”

So the question of, “How do I achieve the benefits of MBSE when no other engineers can access model parameters?” can be answered by using traceable MBSE. Now, the reality at most companies is that the end-to-end systems development process is fragmented into domain-specific tools and spreadsheets that have no built-in collaboration. Now, this leads to fragmented requirements traceability and requires significant manual effort through emails and meetings and sometimes luck to try and prevent delays rework, or cost overruns.

Most companies have come to accept the situation as an unchangeable reality given the lack of a single platform to enable this entire process, nor a method to integrate spreadsheets and desktop tools. Using Traceable MBSE, the system model in the modeling tool is joined with the Jama Connect model. Jama Connect is continually calculating traceability and coverage and provides scores that can be used to identify high-risk areas that can be drilled into to determine corrective actions. The system model can detect those changes and the modeling engineers can take the corrective actions.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THIS WEBINAR IN ITS ENTIRETY:
Bridging ALM and MBSE: Strategies for Seamless Integration

In this blog, we recap our webinar, “Concurrent Engineering in Aerospace and Live Traceability™” – Click HERE for the full version.

Concurrent Engineering in Aerospace and Live Traceability™

In this webinar, you will gain an understanding of the essential components of concurrent engineering, which include:

• The process itself
• Forming a team with members from different disciplines
• Utilizing a unified design model
• Collaborating in a shared workspace
• Implementing a software tool infrastructure
• Model-Based-Systems-Engineering (MBSE) and Live Traceability™ for Concurrent Engineering inside Jama Connect

Take this opportunity to discover how to speed the analysis of feasibility, programmatics, risk, and cost in addition to surfacing and resolving technical issues early between a space agency (customer) and contractors (suppliers).

Below is a preview of our webinar. Click HERE to watch it in its entirety.

The following is an abbreviated transcript of our webinar.

Concurrent Engineering in Aerospace and Live Traceability™

Cary Bryczek: A simple agenda for today’s webinar. I’ll begin with explaining just what concurrent engineering is, and then I’ll give you a demonstration of Jama with some ideas for how to adopt those concurrent engineering practices. And then I’ll just open up the floor for some Q&A.

I’ll start by telling you a little bit about my company, Jama Software. We’re the leader in requirements management. Our purpose is to ensure that innovators succeed with client success at the forefront of everything that we do. Through years of industry-specific experience and thousands of client engagements, we provide best practices and pre-built frameworks to help teams manage their product, system, and software requirements with live traceability through the development cycle.

Our clients believe from faster cycle times and speed to market, increased process efficiency, visibility, control and quality, and streamlined reviews, compliance and risk management, all in a single source of truth. Our Jama Connect software and services help teams manage complex development in regulated industries such as medical devices and life sciences, automotive, semiconductor, space systems, airborne & defense, as well as non-regulated industries such as industrial manufacturing, finance, insurance, and software development.

The reality at most companies is that the end-to-end systems development process is fragmented into domain-specific tools and spreadsheets that have no built-in collaboration. This leads to fragmented requirements traceability and requires significant manual effort through emails, meetings, and luck to try and prevent delays, defects, rework, and cost overruns.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Aerospace

Bryczek: Most companies have come to accept the situation as an unchangeable reality given the lack of a single platform to enable the entire process, nor a method to integrate spreadsheets and desktop tools. Concurrent engineering practices can help solve some of the lack of traceability and communication, but a collaborative requirements tool like Jama is what helps communicate the evidence and make sure what is being developed aligns with the mission, goals, and needs.

Let’s dig in. As defined by the European Space Agency, concurrent engineering is a systematic approach to integrated product development that emphasizes the response to customer expectations. It embodies team values of cooperation, trust, and sharing in such a matter that decision-making is by consensus, involving all perspectives in parallel from the beginning of the product lifecycle.

Traditionally, engineers faced with the task of designing a new complex system or architecture work in sequence, one step at a time, passing the design from one subsystem specialist to the next without interaction with the rest of the team. That’s the traditional, that’s the old style.

As seen in the figure on the left, this sequential engineering begins with customer requirements and then progresses to design implementation, verifications, and maintenance. The approach for sequential engineering results in large amounts of time devoted to product development. This drives higher cost and is less efficient as products can’t be made quickly.

And this is a big deal in the space industry because when we’re in the early phases of mission analysis, you can’t afford to have a really long, lengthy product development. Sequential really just doesn’t make sense. It’s just too expensive and you need to come up with those variants right away.

RELATED: The Essential Guide to Requirements Management and Traceability

Bryczek: So concurrent engineering, on the right, is based on teamwork and focused on a common design model that evolves iteratively in real-time. As the different subsystem experts provide their contributions, designers, and customers agree on requirements and take decisions in real-time to allow the best design for the right cost within the programmatic constraints. So concurrent engineering, it allows for all stages of product development to occur essentially at the same time.

As seen in sequential engineering versus concurrent, the figure in the middle of the screen that you see, initial planning really is the only requirement before the process can occur, including planning, design, implementation, testing, and evaluation. The concurrent design and manufacturing approach allows for shortening that product development time, gives you higher efficiency in developing, and producing the parts earlier, and it lowers those production costs.

The European Space Agency commonly produces a costed, risk-assessed, conceptual space mission or system design complete with various options including the scheduling, testing, and operations in only just a few weeks, and they’ve been doing it a really long time.

We think that concurrent engineering and design manufacturing, it emphasizes parallel types of tasks. So you have an integrated product development approach, some people might call it. It really has it so that where the functions of the design, engineering, and manufacturing are working in parallel at the same time, highly collaborative to bring that new product to market.

Who uses something like concurrent engineering? There’s a lot of people. Space agencies like the European Space Agency and NASA, automotive companies like Toyota and Harley Davidson, contract manufacturing companies, and even large energy and oil companies. There are a lot of organizations out there that are doing it and doing it very successfully.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THIS WEBINAR IN ITS ENTIRETY:
Concurrent Engineering in Aerospace and Live Traceability™