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Seamless Digital Engineering: A Grand Challenge Driven by Needs

James S. Wheaton, Daniel R. Herber

TL;DR

Seamless Digital Engineering (SDE) aims to resolve the fragmentation of current DE tool ecosystems by proposing a clean-slate DES with end-to-end formal verification. The authors define SDE, contrast it with existing DE approaches, and articulate a Seamless Integration Design Pattern and architecture tenets to guide future research. They argue for a grand-challenge-scale, transdisciplinary effort with open reference architectures and systematic evaluation to achieve model coherence and an elegant human-computer interface. The work emphasizes cybersecurity, reliability, and HCI as core drivers for practical adoption in complex, enterprise-scale engineering environments.

Abstract

Digital Engineering currently relies on costly and often bespoke integration of disparate software products to assemble the authoritative source of truth of the system-of-interest. Tools not originally designed to work together become an acknowledged system-of-systems, with their own separate feature roadmaps, deprecation, and support timelines. The resulting brittleness and conglomeration of disparate interfaces in the Digital Engineering Ecosystem of an organization drains resources and impairs efficiency and efficacy. If Model-Based Systems Engineering were applied to this problem, a complete system architecture model would be defined, and a purpose-built computing system-of-systems would be constructed to satisfy stakeholder needs. We have decades of research in computer science, cybersecurity, software and systems engineering, and human-computer interaction from which to draw that informs the design of a Seamless Digital Engineering tooling system, but it would require starting from a clean slate while carefully adopting existing standards. In this paper, this problem space and solution space are characterized, defining and identifying Seamless Digital Engineering as a grand challenge in Digital Engineering research.

Seamless Digital Engineering: A Grand Challenge Driven by Needs

TL;DR

Seamless Digital Engineering (SDE) aims to resolve the fragmentation of current DE tool ecosystems by proposing a clean-slate DES with end-to-end formal verification. The authors define SDE, contrast it with existing DE approaches, and articulate a Seamless Integration Design Pattern and architecture tenets to guide future research. They argue for a grand-challenge-scale, transdisciplinary effort with open reference architectures and systematic evaluation to achieve model coherence and an elegant human-computer interface. The work emphasizes cybersecurity, reliability, and HCI as core drivers for practical adoption in complex, enterprise-scale engineering environments.

Abstract

Digital Engineering currently relies on costly and often bespoke integration of disparate software products to assemble the authoritative source of truth of the system-of-interest. Tools not originally designed to work together become an acknowledged system-of-systems, with their own separate feature roadmaps, deprecation, and support timelines. The resulting brittleness and conglomeration of disparate interfaces in the Digital Engineering Ecosystem of an organization drains resources and impairs efficiency and efficacy. If Model-Based Systems Engineering were applied to this problem, a complete system architecture model would be defined, and a purpose-built computing system-of-systems would be constructed to satisfy stakeholder needs. We have decades of research in computer science, cybersecurity, software and systems engineering, and human-computer interaction from which to draw that informs the design of a Seamless Digital Engineering tooling system, but it would require starting from a clean slate while carefully adopting existing standards. In this paper, this problem space and solution space are characterized, defining and identifying Seamless Digital Engineering as a grand challenge in Digital Engineering research.
Paper Structure (18 sections, 7 figures, 4 tables)

This paper contains 18 sections, 7 figures, 4 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Characterizing the Problem Space
  4. Stakeholders and Goals
  5. DE is an Adaptation of Existing Tools and Available Computing Systems
  6. Common DE Integration Patterns
  7. Import/Export Pattern
  8. Custom Shim Pattern
  9. API Pattern
  10. DE As-Implemented Cannot be Elegant or Seamless
  11. Existing Computer Platforms are Nonviable
  12. Defining Seamless Digital Engineering
  13. Seamless DE is a Refinement of DE
  14. Seamless Integration Requirements
  15. Seamless Integration Design Pattern
  16. ...and 3 more sections

Figures (7)

  • Figure 1: Generic Problem-Solution Space (SysML v2 depiction).
  • Figure 2: Import/Export method of DE tool integration (SysML v2 depiction).
  • Figure 3: Custom Shim method of DE tool integration (SysML v2 depiction).
  • Figure 4: SysML v2 API method of DE tool integration (SysML v2 depiction).
  • Figure 5: The Error Avalanche (adapted from claxton2005test).
  • ...and 2 more figures