Real MBSE: Turn Word and Excel Into Systems Intelligence Webinar

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Systems engineers often find themselves drowning in documents. Requirement specifications, design details, and legacy data are frequently trapped within common office tools like Microsoft Word and Excel. While these tools are excellent for publication, they lack the connective intelligence needed for modern Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE).

But what if you could transform those static documents into dynamic, traceable systems intelligence?

This challenge was the focus of our webinar, "Real MBSE: Turn Word and Excel Into Systems Intelligence," Part 2 of our 7-Part Real MBSE series. Dr. Steven Dam used this session to dive into the practical process of integrating disparate data sources and utilizing MBSE tools like Innoslate to build a robust system model.

The Problem With Documents

Documentation is often the starting point for any project. Information might come from high-level vision documents, legacy system constraints, or even detailed ideas about specific hardware or software. These sources are commonly found in PDF documents, Excel spreadsheets, or, if you're lucky, well-structured Word documents.

While Word is a "super publication tool," it is not an ideal management or analysis tool. Relying solely on documents leads to several critical issues:

1. Lack of Analysis: Documents may contain ideas or constraints that are not formally stated as requirements. They might be unverifiable, infeasible, or conflict with legal or system-of-systems constraints.
2. Data Isolation: Requirements exist in silos. If system-level requirements are in one document and subsystem requirements are in another, tracking flow-down and dependencies becomes a manual nightmare.
3. Limited Abstraction: Engineers might prematurely constrain the design by making requirements too specific, potentially limiting the system's capabilities or inflating costs.
   
   

The Solution: A Process-Driven Approach

To bridge the gap between documents and systems intelligence, a defined process is essential. Dr. Dam referenced a methodology he developed in 1993, inspired by adapting MIL-STD-499B, which emphasizes bringing in information from diverse sources and conducting rigorous requirements analysis.

The key to implementation lies in robust tooling that can handle various data formats:

• Import Capability: Tools must ingest data from common formats such as Word, Excel, and plain text, as well as industry standards such as ReqIF and CSV. Dr. Dam noted that CSV import often proves the most reliable way to move data between different tools.
• Mapping: Once data is imported, a critical "customize" or mapping step is necessary to ensure the information aligns with the system model's structure.
  
  

Defining a Good Requirement

Central to the process is understanding what constitutes a "good requirement." Dr. Dam uses a set of criteria originally developed with Ivy Hooks, a co-founder of the INCOSE Requirements Working Group, which includes quality attributes such as correctness, feasibility, and verifiability.

By leveraging an MBSE tool, engineers can use the imported data to drive system modeling. The models then help define requirements at a higher functional level, ensuring better abstraction and preventing over-constraining the final design.

Conclusion

"Real MBSE" means moving beyond document management and embracing data intelligence. By using structured processes and powerful tools, engineers can pull critical requirements out of static Word and Excel files, rigorously analyze them, and integrate them into a living, traceable system model. This transformation is not just about digitizing documents; it's about building a foundation of systems intelligence that ensures better design, lower costs, and successful project outcomes.