A Holistic Approach For Realizing Model Based Enterprises (MBE) 2
Business execution in the A&D market is intimately tied to program execution—either externally
contracted or internally authorized efforts—in the development of products and systems
(e.g., aircraft or weapons systems). The objective of a Model Based Enterprise is to elevate
business execution throughout the enterprise, which by necessity includes program and
project management, configuration and change management and the implementation of system
engineering and detailed design, manufacturing, and support processes.
Leaders accountable for execution need to be able to manage information efficiently—including
the tasks to collect, interpret, control, find, share, and maintain information.
3
Successful,
decision-makers (executives, program managers, architects, etc.) need to constantly track the
performance of their enterprise and how its products fare in the commercial and government
marketplaces. Effective product development feeds into this execution awareness and there are
well-documented methods
4
enabled by tools and processes to achieve such outcomes—in process
models, functional decompositions, allocated requirements specifications and numerous other
model artifacts.
Varying by domain, descriptive and computational models capture aspects of a system and
its intended deployed mission, usage, and operating environments, which enable improved
confidence in the completeness and correctness of the product specification, the validity of
which is supported by a number of model-based and traditional methods including architecture,
simulations, and analysis, trace, test, engineering reviews, and similarity.
5
Positive business
execution outcomes are the result of the use of models and improved methods and infrastructure
reducing volatility and churn associated with text or documentation-only approaches.
A Model Based Enterprise (MBE) approach provides the opportunity for stepwise improvements
in program execution, performance and integrity. In order to reap the benefits of an MBE across
the enterprise value chains, it is critical to efficiently align a company’s extended enterprise—its
people, suppliers, methods, processes, and technology.
MBE is an approach, for the people and disciplines of an extended organization, using enterprise
infrastructure and applications to leverage lifecycle-managed, connected, descriptive and
computational models throughout the program lifecycle to achieve organizational business
objectives for process efficiency for user and organizational productivity. MBE includes PLM-
grade program governance, guided, facilitated and enforced business processes and rich
systems engineering enforced development processes to deliver validated, execution-enabled
business models for architecture and detailed design definition, process control and performance
evaluation. An MBE is used as the basis for creating the program plan and integrated master
schedule. These execution models are built upon a supporting open, secure, configuration-
enabled, standards-based platform. Product, environment and execution models evolve in their
maturity, fidelity, and validity throughout the program. Product and environment models that
serve a particular utility at one stage in the lifecycle will be transformed and translated into other
models or views in subsequent stages in the program life cycle.
MBE is a holistic approach that assists stakeholders across the entire enterprise in exploring and
qualifying better options. By taking into account the rich connectedness of model information,
decision-makers have a powerful instrument to explore options and make actionable real-time
decisions. In this paper we explore the continuing need for improving organizational execution
including program improvement in the context of the historical initiatives, which leads to an
1 Lisa Brownsword, Cecilia Albert, David Carney, Patrick Place, “Results in Relating Quality Attributes to Acquisition Strategies” SEI Technical Note: CMU/
SEI-2013-TN-026 February 2014.
2 Lisa Brownsword, Cecilia Albert, David Carney, Patrick Place, “A Method for Aligning Acquisition Strategies and Software Architectures” SEI Technical Note:
CMU/SEI-2014-TN-019 October 2014.
3 Information is elicited from data, in “Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business” by Malcom
Frank 2014 there are three types of data individuals, collectors, explorers, and sense-makers. These types of individuals convert data, to information, to
knowledge and intelligence.
4 Department of Defense Systems Engineering Fundamentals, Supplementary Text Prepared by the Defense Acquisition University Press, Fort Belvoir, VA
22060-5565, January 2001.
5 SEI Presentation: Making DARPA META Goals Come True, “How do we revolutionize Verification and Validation for Complex Systems?”, Dr. Kirstie L. Bellman
Computers and software Division (AISIC); The Aerospace Corporation, June 17, 2010, S5 2010, WP AFB