Broadcast date: December 1st, 2021

You can join and watch this episode on Youtube, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, or Google Podcasts.

Welcome to the MBSE Podcast Advent Calendar. We will open a new door every day until December 24th. This means that every day there will be a short MBSE Podcast episode.

In 24 episodes, we will each briefly describe how to model a system using the SYSMOD methodology. Each episode highlights a new aspect. The system is our super cool MBSE Podcast Christmas tree. 

The example is not entirely serious, of course, but we are modeling seriously. Sometimes this will make it look a bit strange and certainly very much like over-modeling.

With our advent calendar, you get a lightweight overview of modeling a system and the essential steps of the MBSE methodology SYSMOD. In addition, each episode also contains a small gift in the form of good practice.

The Advent Calendar episodes are different from the previous episodes. They are only about around 5 minutes long, we don’t have a guest, and since we also want to show the modeling, the audio-only channel only works to a limited extent.

We use Cameo Systems Modeler and the SYSMOD profile as the system modeling environment for our project. However, any other SysML-compliant modeling tool could also be used for the project.

In 2022 we will continue with our regular MBSE podcast episodes with live sessions exciting guests from the MBSE community.

Now, let’s take a first look at the model. 

On the left side, you can see the model structure. The package “Derived Properties” is tool-specific. We don’t need to look at that any further. The “International Christmas Standard” is a model library covered in the following session about requirements.

The package symbol with the tiny triangle is the root of our product model, “The MBSE Podcast Christmas Tree” – abbreviated TMPCT. On the next level, you can see packages for several engineering artifacts like context, requirements, or architectures. They will be covered step by step in the following episodes.

Here comes the special learning gift of this episode: It is a good practice to design the package structure the following way. At the top level, separation is made according to primary engineering artifacts. The package names are each given the namespace above as a prefix, e.g. TMPCT_Context. At the base architecture or physical architecture level below, the elements of individual components of the system, such as the tree, are stored in their own packages. Their substructure behaves like the structure of the system model. Thus the package structure scales very well. If required, these packages can be cut out and used as separate system models.

Let’s open the package diagram “TMPCT Model Structure”. It depicts the applied profiles and used libraries of our system model. 

From left to right: 

• We apply the SYSMOD profile to use SYSMOD-specific model elements like system, system context, or system use cases.
• We apply the FAS profile for the modeling of functional architectures using the FAS method.
• We import the Engineering4Planet model library for sustainability elements. That library is provided by SYSMOD.
• We import the PartsCatalogue model library to get some nice reusable elements. That library is also provided by SYSMOD.
• And we import the “International Christmas Standard” model library to get common Christmas tree requirements.

All the profiles and libraries will be used in some of the following sessions as well as we will explicitly cover profiles and model libraries.

So much for the first door of our MBSE Podcast Advent Calendar. We wish you a great 1st of December.

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