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Digital Transformation: Leveraging Model-based Engineering to Manage Risk

The more complex the system, the more likely it is to fail.

Companies at the forefront of electronic systems engineering understand this basic tenet of risk analysis. They must face the many challenges of rapidly developing markets and futuristic products. Reaping the rewards of these new opportunities and innovations requires more complex products, processes, and, often larger more complex organizations.

Technology has not only increased the complexity of individual domains, but also the number of domains. And these complexities introduce a lot more risk of failures. These include failure to meet delivery targets and system requirements, failure to achieve manufacturing yield, and failure to function in the field and continue to do so over the expected life of a product.

Electronic systems themselves are becoming more complex, not just at the individual board level, but at the subsystem and system levels as well, with multi-board designs becoming increasingly common. Furthermore, this complexity spills over to mechanical engineering and manufacturing as all domains need to become more integrated and cohesive to move toward creating final products more efficiently and effectively. It's no longer possible to design the electronics without taking into consideration the other domains that come together to create that system—including the software, mechanical, and electrical domains.

All this brings new kinds of challenges. Complexity is no longer something we can look at as solving a single domain challenge. We must look at more sophisticated solutions that help us in a multi-domain context and help bring those multi-domain architectures together earlier in the product design cycle. That solution requires model-based engineering (MBE).

Model-based engineering has been around since Mylar and tape gave way to a revolutionary little thing called computer-assisted design. It’s no surprise that what people mean by “MBE” has had a variety of shadings over time. But what do we mean by MBE today in this context?

Basically, it starts with a digital model (the digital twin) that's intended to represent something physical. The more we can use digital models throughout the design process, the more we can avoid using paper and handing off non-digital descriptions. In other words, we want to establish a digital thread, which is a communications framework that allows a connected data flow and integrated view of a product’s data throughout its lifecycle—spanning ideation, realization, and utilization. The digital thread allows us to pass digital models from one step, one domain, and one discipline to the next, instead of having to regenerate new digital models with every incarnation of the design.

By leveraging the digital thread, the digital twin, and existing modeling capabilities, we can start addressing system design challenges. The digital thread enables continuity between domains and traceability from requirements all the way to manufacturing. As we increase the sophistication of the digital thread, more data and metadata can be shared along its ribbon, increasing the fidelity of the exchange.

The digital twin has evolved as well, allowing more complex interactions to be validated, analyzed, and simulated earlier in the design cycle. These digital models are not limited to design; they continue to be used in manufacturing processes and even in the matching models of a product in use. Through scalable, multi-domain flows that leverage the digital twin and digital thread framework, companies reap the benefits of reducing the need for expensive, time-consuming physical prototypes.

Thus, a model-based engineering approach consolidates advanced multi-domain system models, allowing for the definition of a multi-domain solution and early (shift-left) simulation at the system level. Importantly, all of this takes place before implementation and while the physical realization comes to fruition. As a result, model-based system engineering supports design, process, and system scaling, addressing exploration, design, verification, validation, and certification of complex electronics functions across all the development domains. Therefore, MBE is effective in mitigating the risks of electronic systems design and manufacture.

To enable multi-domain system design through MBE, we leverage the digital thread to integrate the flow from requirements through manufacturing and across multiple design domains. The digital twin is used to make system-level trade-offs, verify the design, and make optimizations through analysis.

Figure 1: Orchestrating MBE for electronic systems require focus on three key areas.

This flow consists of three broad activities that are essential to closing on the architecture, development, and verification of complex electronic systems. It begins with decomposition of the product and requirements into the electronics domain. Decomposition involves taking the high-level architecture and design requirements and breaking them down into different domains, including mechanical, electronic/hardware, electrical, and software. There is often a gap between the requirements and domain architectures, requiring manual interpretation by the system engineer (think drawings and napkins) to decompose the requirements into multiple domains.

Once the electronics domain component is defined, it must be further decomposed into (potentially) multiple boards, with IC packages and ICs on them. Only then can traditional authoring tools like PCB or IC flows be leveraged to create the high-fidelity digital twin for the hardware domain.

In the next column, I’ll address how MBE enables analysis and verification throughout the design process.

By embracing the digital thread and digital twin as they move through the MBE flow, multi-discipline, multi-domain engineering teams can build the most exciting and innovative products of tomorrow, today.

This column originally appeared in the February 2022 issue of Design007 Magazine.

Check out this additional content from Siemens Digital Industries Software: 

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• Siemens’ free, 12-part, on-demand webinar series?“Implementing Digital Twin Best Practices From Design Through Manufacturing.” 
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