Making the case for quality metrics for conceptual models in systems engineering

The adoption of model based systems engineering takes models and puts them front and center to support all systems engineering activities. The majority of the models are static models describing some aspects concerning the structure of the system. This paper addresses the question of what makes a good model. The paper discusses modeling languages and how quality is defined and measured in software engineering where much more work has been done. We propose developing metrics based on the systems engineering activity models to supplement quality metrics borrowed from software engineering.