Bridging the capability gap in federated Systems of Systems
modelling environments
The demand for Network Enabled Capability (NEC) programmes has
increased the need to coordinate complex projects that must
integrate heterogeneous technologies from multiple parties (i.e.
system of systems) while retaining focus on a fixed delivery
deadline. Multiple stakeholders are involved in specifying
requirements, technologies, modelling constraints and acceptance
processes. Yet, despite significant investment into Enterprise
Architecture (EA), traditional modelling practices struggle to
deliver the intended benefits, particularly when faced with
concurrently evolving requirements and models within a systems of
systems context. In this article, VEGA’s Damian Almeida considers
lessons learned on the Italian MOD Forza NEC Programme to suggest
how to deliver a functionally rich, data-centric, collaborative
engineering environment that will help complex programmes realise
the tangible benefits of the leading EA techniques and
technologies.
The Italian Challenge
Within the current environment of international military
collaboration, the Italian Army has launched a transformational
project, called Forza NEC, which applies the new concepts of
digitalisation and network centricity to the battlefield. Forza NEC
is a spiral project, envisaging the realisation of three
digitalised medium-sized regiments by 2015, which will be
consistent with the plan to deliver and integrate Land Forces by
2025. Finmeccanica, through its subsidiary SELEX Sistemi Integrati,
has been selected as Project Leader. First development of this
project started in 2008.
Key to the success of Forza NEC and other programmes, is the
design and experimentation with a new network-enabled architecture
for land-based force packages entitled the Combined Warfare
Programme (CWP), which is funded by the Italian Ministry of
Industry.
How VEGA helped
VEGA is helping evolve the architecture-based services that
support the new network-centric architecture for CWP. This allows
SELEX Sistemi Integrati to provide an integrated and collaborative
environment with guidelines, requirements and tools that support
the end-to-end systems engineering and enterprise architecture
processes that will deliver a significant improvement in the
incremental integration and acceptance of capability for Forza
NEC.
Essential to the success of this approach is the effective
optimisation of a wide variety of tools, including EA tools,
utilising a federated approach to the data and architectures.
VEGA’s integration framework enables:
- A centralised data sharing model
- Unified configuration control of source files and
artefacts
- An architecture-centred methodology for linking requirements to
architecture to acceptance testing
The software configuration being deployed in 2010 comprises a
variety of toolsets, each one chosen to meet a specific requirement
of the architectural challenge. These include:
- IBM DOORSTM
- IBM System ArchitectTM
- SELEX Systems Integration’s Capability Acceptance Tool (CAT
dash-boarding)
- Template-based reporting to aggregate source and tracing data
to inform decision making and analysis
- Artisan StudioTM
- Ms-Office suiteTM
VEGA’s solution uses:
- Artisan WorkbenchTM (tracing, versioning, user management)
- Windows Virtual Server and Windows Terminal Services
Toolsets can vary (and co-exist) within the integration
platform, and therefore the proprietary products above may be
substituted or augmented. To realise the benefits, procedural
guidance and training binds the configuration with best practice
usage.
The lessons VEGA has been able to learn from this approach to
support the Forza NEC programme have enabled us to identify several
transferable benefits with potential value to managers of other
complex programmes.
Transferable Value
Technology managers in NEC programmes are increasingly required
to coordinate complex projects that need to integrate heterogeneous
technologies from multiple parties while retaining focus on a fixed
delivery deadline. Through its experience on Forza NEC and other
NEC programmes, VEGA believes the use of architectural modelling
services to support complex programmes can result in a number of
specific benefits:
- Increased confidence: the rigorous,
structured, evidence-based, auditable approach bridges the gap
between requirements and capability acceptance; it more formally
binds the solution architecture and its implementation to the
requirements and capability architectures
- More effective de-risking: modelling the
entirety of requirements, capabilities, deliveries and acceptance
tests (with measures) within the same MODAF/NAF architecture model
drives coherence and gives confidence that risks are identified,
quantified and mitigated
- Accelerated, lower cost delivery: capturing
and relating customer requirements to capability components, and
tracing the delivery of functionality in a complex system of
systems, exposes gaps and conflicts, and ultimately ensures
more effective acceptance of operational capability
- Better decisions: when requirements,
specifications or supplier timescales change, the overall impact on
the desired capability is easily determined, providing managers
with the insights to re-prioritise and re-plan earlier
The adaptation of an innovative EA approach to bridge the gap
between capability requirements and capability acceptance can, in
VEGA’s experience, benefit the delivery of complex systems of
systems programmes. This approach, as with Forza NEC, can improve
decision making and enable timely interventions for the customer
and their multiple delivery stakeholders.
Contact VEGA to
find out how our enterprise architecture services can contribute
towards your programme design and delivery, generate efficiencies,
and accelerate Systems of Systems projects