The exponential increase in the use of software and electronics has added a great deal of complexity to today’s cyber-physical products and systems, including now “systems of systems” in the interconnected universe of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0. This complexity demands that product development organizations move away from traditional stage gate and document-centric processes and increasing rely on agile and digital model-based processes that encompass all aspects of systems lifecycle design from initial requirements definition thru in-service use and re-use/retirement. However, with this increased systems complexity, product engineering teams now face new challenges that undesirable system-level behaviors will emerge due to cross-domain interactions that may not be adequately understood by any one individual or functional domain of the product development teams (i.e., mechanical, electrical/electronics, software, controls, chemistry, etc.).
Thus, one of the greatest challenges to enabling Digital Transformation and the lifecycle Digital Thread is integrating the myriad of different engineering models and data silos that exist today in both systems engineering and the physics-based modeling and simulation domains required to enable a robust MBSE process thread. in this presentation, CIMdata will highlight the major changes underway in the integration of these heretofore largely disconnected domains including the industry standards and emerging technologies that we believe will most strongly impact the level of collaboration required to design, develop, validate, manufacture and operate today’s complex cyber-physical systems.