THEME SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
NO SYSTEMS ENGINEERING WITHOUT DIGITAL ENGINEERING Digitalization makes it possible to automate large parts of the engineering process. Much can be gained by better harmonizing information from various disciplines, stimulating reuse, formalization and simulation, digital twinning, smart feedback and the application of artificial intelligence. However, the implementation is so comprehensive that collaboration between academia and industry is the only logical step. The High Tech Systems Center is building a consortium around digital engineering to work together on continuous improvement of development processes without losing sight of the business aspects. Alexander Pil
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any companies struggle to keep up with technological progress. More and more, techniques and tools are coming onto the market that could be beneficial. Engineers have to be trained to master new cloud technology or simulation methods, for example. This is costly, time consuming and only a small piece of the puzzle. The big question is how to embed the acquired knowledge and potentially crucial methods in their organization and systems – a major problem for the industry. As a result, companies regularly get stuck in the choices they initially made when setting up the product line. And if you stick with the old, y ou quickly fall behind.” These are the words of Marc Hamilton, a fellow at Eindhoven University of Technology’s High Tech Systems Center. He notes that these problems not only affect SMEs. “It’s also a hell of a job for large OEMs with a lot of knowledge and capacity to integrate new tools and techniques into their engineering process. It’s complicated and risky for them to adapt or change their existing workflow. Smaller companies have an advantage in this regard but often lack capacity. For all categories, it puts a brake on how quickly they can integrate new technologies, methodologies and tools.”
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Another group for which this problem frustrates progress are the companies that traditionally have a mechatronic origin but increasingly come to the conclusion that they have to retrain themselves as a software company. “Building all kinds of apps, adding connectivity and monitoring in the cloud is becoming a normal requirement,” Hamilton sums up. “Even for something as simple as a toothbrush, there are now apps that track how well you’ve brushed. Companies are forced to transform into becoming software experts, and that’s a struggle. After all, it was never their core business and they simply don’t have the knowledge on board. Good software experts are hard to find. How do you ensure that you keep up to date with all the rapid developments? Tomorrow, a new technology will emerge and the same struggle starts all over again.”
Context
For the further evolution of systems engineering, an impulse is needed for digital engineering. “That involves the far-reaching digital support of the design process, especially in places where there’s still a lot of human intervention,” explains Hamilton. “System developers already use many tools for digital engineering. Each of
these instruments works fine, but it’s still difficult to connect them in a flow. It takes a lot of human intervention to interpret how to transfer the outcome from one tool to the next. This often goes wrong, especially between the various disciplines in a development organization. It would be very nice if we could automatically transfer all that data.” That’s easier said than done. “It’s difficult in two ways,” clarifies Hamilton. “First, each tool uses its own format to specify and save its input and output. Moreover, this is done based on its own paradigms or principles. Second, the context in which you apply them is crucial. For instance, you can easily make a state machine of the behavior of the weather. You could also generate code from such a model, but that doesn’t mean you can make it rain. Engineers must decide when to use which tool and how to use the results in the other steps. We as humans must manage that interpretation of what a tool contributes to the process.” In many areas, there are already new standards and frameworks around digital engineering, or they’re emerging. In simulations, for example, models such as FMUs can be linked together based on the FMI standard. And the CAD world
