Author: Tim Weilkiens

Manufacturing - Industry 4.0

The 4th Industrial Revolution

In the German manufacturing community everyone talks about Industry 4.0. But hardly anyone could say what it really is and what that supposed to mean. I’ll shed a little more light on it and show the relationship to MBSE. Industry 4.0 Industry 4.0 is a project of the German government in the context of their…
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Nordic Systems Engineering Tour

NoSE 2013 – A Report from the Tour

From April 15th to April 17th I did the first Nordic Systems Engineering Tour. I’ve initiated the tour together with Erik Herzog from Saab in Sweden. NoSE is a 1-day conference event in Hamburg, Copenhagen, and Stockholm in 3 days. The purpose of the events is to promote Systems Engineering and also to strengthen the…
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APE Product Tree (mbse.gfse.de)

What is a model?

Could you easily answer this question? Is a document a model? Why not? Most references define a model or properties of a model like this A model is a representation of something. It captures not all attributes of the represented thing, but rather only those seeming relevant. The model is created for a certain purpose…
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Product Tree Forest Fire Detection System Non-tree Style

Two Kinds of Patterns

Did you know that you use patterns every day? It’s a very powerful mechanism and much more powerful when they are explicit and known. A pattern describes a proven solution for a problem. Every experienced engineer has a huge set of patterns. Think about your daily work. If you must solve a problem that you’ve…
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Nordic Systems Engineering Tour

The Nordic Systems Engineering Tour

I proudly present the Nordic Systems Engineering Tour – a one-day conference event at three different locations in three days. From Hamburg via Copenhagen to Stockholm. Together with Erik Herzog I had the idea to boost systems engineering in northern Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Why these countries? The answer is easy: Erik lives in Sweden…
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Death of the Use Case

Criminal Scene Investigation: Death of the Actor and the Use Case

The previous posts Death of the Actor and Death of the Use Case reported about two serious killings in the modeling scene. Many eyewitnesses commented the report. Now it is time for a short review. First the good news: The concepts Actor and Use Case survived the massacre. I’ve seen them still alive and very active…
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List.ly: Most popular UML modeling tools

Most popular UML modeling tools

Although UML is a modeling language for software, it is sometimes also used in systems engineering projects. Since SysML is a kind of a profile you can define your own SysML stereotypes to use a UML modeling tool for SysML modeling. Please click here: http://list.ly/list/2io-popular-uml-modeling-tools  

Death of the Use Case

The Death of the Use Case

After killing the Actor in The Death of the Actor my next victim is the use case. Don’t use Use cases in SysML (or UML) models anymore! My statement seems to be revolutionary or stupid (or both). Just to be not misunderstood, I’m not against the concept of use cases and actors. I believe that the…
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Trophy - Popular SysML modeling tool

Most popular SysML modeling tools

Please click here: http://list.ly/list/23A-popular-sysml-modeling-tools Unfortunately I have technical problems with the list.ly WordPress plugin and can’t show the list embedded in this blog post.

Why MBSE matters?

Many companies deal with the challenge to introduce MBSE. As a consultant for MBSE I often ask my customer about their objectives to apply MBSE techniques. The answers are more or less the same: the systems are getting more complex and at the same time we must decrease costs and time-to-market and increase the quality.…
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