The power of digital represents an opportunity to fundamentally accelerate and transform the engineering lifecycle, but we must do so correctly. Digitization done poorly will enhance practices but silo practitioners. Embracing a holistic systems perspective enables us to digitalize engineering, empower radical collaboration, and adopt a new model for engineering systems.
The various engineering disciplines have largely digitized their practices including the advancement and adoption of MBSE for systems engineering. However, many organizations and their supporting practices remain siloed. Integrations between teams and lifecycle phases remain largely constrained by old practices and organizational constraints slowing engineering progress and losing knowledge.
Transformation requires more than simply digitizing existing practices. We must reconceptualize what is possible given the unprecedented computing power and data storage capacity of today. This includes ways of working within given disciplines and processes. More importantly, it requires that we look across the engineering lifecycle addressing workflows and interfaces to transform the engineering system rather than its constituent components.
For over 30 years, I have worked with government and commercial organizations as they assess, adopt, and deploy new methods and tools to enhance their engineering enterprise – first MBSE and now digital thread, digital twin, and digital engineering. I have observed common patterns across organizations and disciplines. Looking to fundamental system concepts allows one to transform from the traditional Vee lifecycle model to a series of U’s through concurrency, modularity, and integration powered by digital flows.
By changing our perspectives – from digitization to digitalization, from serial to parallel, from part to whole, from siloed to collaborative – we embrace a new lifecycle model, meet the promise of digital engineering, and deliver transformative results as we engineer the future.