MBSE-Based Design Space Exploration for Productivity Improvement Using Workflow Models

During systems design, systems engineers would like to reason about systems feasibility as early in the process as possible. In this chapter, we present a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) method to support design decisions early in the process of systems development by quantitative information about important system qualities. We focus on productivity and propose a method based on system workflows that provide customer value. We annotate the workflows with quantitative information and resources being used and define a formal semantics for these workflows to enable analysis by means of simulation. The approach reuses constructs of the MBSE method Arcadia and is supported by prototype tooling in the form of an add-on of the tool Capella. We visualize simulation results using Gantt charts, with several viewing possibilities and critical path analysis. Finally, the add-on includes design space exploration functionality, which supports specification of parameter ranges and automatic simulation of all combinations. This integrates early design space exploration with MBSE.