Inter-Step Consistency Analysis in Early Phases of MBSE Approaches

The processes of defining the mission statement, capturing needs, making assumptions, and specifying requirements lie at the core of the challenges associated with modeling complex systems. While the Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach leverages diagrams for specification and design, it is widely acknowledged that not all diagrams effectively communicate among them. This raises a crucial question: How do we guarantee the consistency of the information flowing between the assumptions, captured stakeholder’s needs, specified requirements, and the intended mission statement? Maintaining this consistency is paramount to prevent potential errors in system specification and design. In fact, preventing issues arising from inconsistent specifications in the early stages of a system’s life-cycle is a very difficult task, vital for ensuring the success of verification and validation phases in complex systems development. In this article, our primary focus is to conduct an inter-step analysis between the stages of needs capture and requirements specification, all while taking into account the intended mission statement and the assumptions made to model the system.