InsightPub Date : 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1002/inst.70002
Celia S Tseng, Joseph W. Marvin, William D. Schindel, Juan Carlos Mendo, Terri W. Chan
{"title":"From Fragmentation to Federation: A Proposed Strategy for Advancing Digital Engineering Standards Development","authors":"Celia S Tseng, Joseph W. Marvin, William D. Schindel, Juan Carlos Mendo, Terri W. Chan","doi":"10.1002/inst.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/inst.70002","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The future of systems engineering depends on solving a pressing challenge: the fragmentation of data and models across engineering tools, enterprise systems, and lifecycle processes. While existing standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Object Management Group (OMG), and other standard development organizations (SDOs) address specific domains and data exchange formats, no comprehensive framework exists to guide digital engineering (DE) across the full ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 system lifecycle process—from technical and management processes to enabling and agreement activities. This disconnect limits organizations' ability to integrate, scale, and deliver consistent value across increasingly complex ecosystems.</p>\u0000 <p>This article examines the current gaps in interoperability standardization efforts and outlines opportunities for the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) to shape the future of digital transformation. It introduces the INCOSE agile systems engineering life cycle management (ASELCM) pattern as a foundation for aligning lifecycle processes with model-based technical exchanges through a federated digital thread. The authors call for INCOSE to adopt a strategic standardization role—working with other SDOs to define interoperability use cases, align lifecycle models, and model-based systems engineering (MBSE) standards, and develop a shared reference framework for interoperability. This collaboration is essential for enabling seamless, cross-enterprise interoperability—and for empowering organizations to realize the speed, scale, and economic advantage promised by digital transformation.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 5","pages":"11-18"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145297257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1002/inst.70001
Salvatore R Bruno, Dr. Carol Woody, Steve Henry, Celia Tseng
{"title":"Digital Engineering: Transforming The Research Into The Business Roadmap","authors":"Salvatore R Bruno, Dr. Carol Woody, Steve Henry, Celia Tseng","doi":"10.1002/inst.70001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/inst.70001","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Organizations are embedding digital engineering and model-based engineering into their systems engineering lifecycles to achieve cost savings, higher product quality, and earlier delivery. From a business perspective, understanding the success of their digital transformation investment, has been lacking. To address this requested need, government, university, and industry experts have collaborated with the INCOSE Measurement Working Group to enhance the issuance of the initial Digital Engineering Measurement Framework (v1.1) to include measures that track, and report results related to digital engineering business operations and environmental benefits. This article describes the approach used to mature the guidance document, the benefits of the new measures, and recommendations for the sequential release.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 5","pages":"19-23"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145297258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1002/inst.70009
Joe Gregory, Clarence (Moe) Moreland, James S. Wheaton, Celia Tseng
{"title":"The Need for a Shared Vocabulary of Digital Engineering","authors":"Joe Gregory, Clarence (Moe) Moreland, James S. Wheaton, Celia Tseng","doi":"10.1002/inst.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/inst.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In recent years, many organizations have embraced digital engineering (DE) as a strategy for enhancing integration and interoperability across the system lifecycle. However, research into the development of DE practices has shown that a lack of consensus on terminology can hinder progress. Common terms such as ‘digital thread’, ‘digital twin’, and ‘authoritative source of truth’ are defined inconsistently across domains and organizations, creating friction in digital information exchange. Automated, efficient information exchange requires a precise lexicon to facilitate understanding for humans and machines. The INCOSE Digital Engineering Information Exchange (DEIX) Working Group is working to address this challenge by developing a formal ontology of DE concepts. This article addresses some of the key terminology challenges facing DE practitioners and describes how a machine-readable ontology can help to create a shared understanding of DE and enable more effective implementation of DE practices.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 5","pages":"58-61"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145297260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1002/inst.12553
Gary Smith
{"title":"Systemic Elegance: Clarifying Complexity and Emergence for Engineering Practice","authors":"Gary Smith","doi":"10.1002/inst.12553","DOIUrl":"10.1002/inst.12553","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In systems engineering, elegance is often associated with simplicity and control, but this risks ignoring the deeper systemic nature of elegance as coherence between complexity and purpose. This article reframes elegance not as minimalism, but as the systemic sufficiency of structure, behavior, and context. Drawing from systems science foundations and the triad of fit–form–function, we argue that true systemic elegance arises when relational complexity is harnessed, not suppressed, to yield emergent coherence across levels. Elegant systems are those that integrate complexity without introducing unnecessary complication; they achieve just enough richness to engage with the variety of their environment, while avoiding overdesign. This balance is not accidental; it results from rigorous architecting and purposeful design. Using examples and distinctions, this article offers a framework for systems engineers to recognize, cultivate, and evaluate elegance as a dynamic outcome of systemic coherence.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 4","pages":"29-32"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145038109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1002/inst.12560
{"title":"Systems Engineering: The Journal of The International Council on Systems Engineering","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/inst.12560","DOIUrl":"10.1002/inst.12560","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145038112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1002/inst.12551
Dean Beale, Rudolph Oosthuizen, Dorothy McKinney, Francesco Dazzi, Joshua Sutherland
{"title":"Bursting the Bubble of Complexity: Reflections on the activities of the INCOSE Complex Systems Working Group (CSWG)","authors":"Dean Beale, Rudolph Oosthuizen, Dorothy McKinney, Francesco Dazzi, Joshua Sutherland","doi":"10.1002/inst.12551","DOIUrl":"10.1002/inst.12551","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We have entered an era of rapid change and increasing uncertainty. The biggest mistake we can make as systems engineers is ignoring this change. The term “uncertainty” is deeply connected to complexity for many communities, including INCOSE's Complex Systems Working Group (CSWG). As uncertainty or complexity increases, our experience, and indeed logic, suggests that the practices and techniques developed for a world of sufficient certainty are no longer enough, no matter how gifted the engineer. At this point, it is essential to change our mindset from “I know enough” to “I know I am wrong about something”. This mindset shift triggers a desire and need for continuous learning, new practices and techniques which embrace different viewpoints, learning through failure, and results in flexible and adaptable systems. The work of the CSWG, described in the article, is to identify and create suitable practices for the practitioner systems engineer in this new, uncertain, and complex age. We are aiming to “burst the bubble of complexity” and enable engineers to deal effectively with uncertainty and complexity. But the pace of change is fast, the complexity landscape is vast, and the tradecraft still emerging. Hence, the only way to address this complexity challenge sufficiently is to recruit communities of experts with diverse views who can work collaboratively towards these common aims.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 4","pages":"15-20"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145038194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1002/inst.12550
Michael D. Watson, Andrew T. Fried
{"title":"Elegance and Complexity","authors":"Michael D. Watson, Andrew T. Fried","doi":"10.1002/inst.12550","DOIUrl":"10.1002/inst.12550","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 4","pages":"13-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145038199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1002/inst.12554
Javier Calvo-Amodio, Harington Lee, Veronika Shteingardt, Dorothy McKinney, Dov Dori
{"title":"The Purposeful Evolution of Systems Engineering Heuristics Using I-SHARE","authors":"Javier Calvo-Amodio, Harington Lee, Veronika Shteingardt, Dorothy McKinney, Dov Dori","doi":"10.1002/inst.12554","DOIUrl":"10.1002/inst.12554","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>A heuristic relates to a formulation based on experts' experience, which draws on observed common patterns and serves as a guide in investigating or solving a problem. A transdisciplinary field, systems engineering involves many useful heuristics, as it integrates the gamut of engineering disciplines in defining a system throughout its lifecycle. To be usable, heuristics should be memorable and pithy, and the consequences of applying them should be predictable. To be predictable, a heuristic should provide insights into how and why it works in a particular context. The first step to increase the capability of systems engineering heuristics was the creation of the I-SHARE–INCOSE Systems Heuristics Application Repository, a curated knowledge base of over 600 systems engineering-related heuristics covering systems engineering competencies, lifecycle stages, expertise, operational domains, system attributes, and more. Here, we describe a process for guiding the systems engineering community on how to validate, test, and assess heuristics, and how the systems engineering community can engage with I-SHARE to benefit from the heuristics in it and collectively improve their capabilities.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 4","pages":"33-42"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145038189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
InsightPub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1002/inst.12556
David Rousseau, Julie Billingham
{"title":"Principles for Minimizing Unintended Consequences","authors":"David Rousseau, Julie Billingham","doi":"10.1002/inst.12556","DOIUrl":"10.1002/inst.12556","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>A significant challenge to the success of systems engineering solutions is the risk of unintended consequences. This has traditionally been considered to be a real but unactionable requirement. Here, we analyse the notion of unintended consequences and propose an equivalent but actionable requirement, which we relate to the concept of ‘harmony’. The implication of this notion is that in order to assure solution success it has to be architected in concert with considering the structure and dynamics of the system of systems in which it will be deployed. We conducted a study of natural ecosystems as a case study from which we could glean relevant architecting principles. From this we developed a general model of the structure and dynamics of a complex system of systems. From this study and model we distilled a set of general principles for systems architecting. Along the way we introduced a framework for understanding the relationships between the notions elegant, complex, complicated, and simple. We also introduce a new perspective on emergence at the level of parts, supplementing classical notions of emergence at the level of the whole.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13956,"journal":{"name":"Insight","volume":"28 4","pages":"47-61"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145038114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}