Modeling System Configurations Over Time

One of the most troublesome and challenging parts of systems engineering is that systems keep changing. Some changes are planned as part of a phased system rollout. Others can occur because of changes in the environment, technology, customer need, unexpected emergent properties, competition, discovered system vulnerabilities, etc. Regardless of why, the systems engineer needs to document these configurations as part of a digital thread leading to physical systems that will be manufactured and installed. When using SysML as part of MBSE, there are advantages and disadvantages regarding the modeling variability using inheritance and other structural modeling techniques. Elements in a so-called superclass will be inherited by all members. This is advantageous for additive systems but can cause issues when configurations require removal of systems. This paper will examine system configuration over time showing how to model configurations and changes. It will also look at other techniques such as Product Line Engineering (PLE) with OVM and Feature Based Modeling. Copyright © 2023 by Matthew Hause, Lars-Olof Kihlström. Permission granted to INCOSE to publish and use.