MOSES = Lightweight MBSE

Viewed in black and white—and especially through the lens of methodology—MBSE represents a paradigm shift from traditional, V-model-oriented product development:

• Data organization is no longer governed by individual artifacts/specifications and documents, but rather by structured, interconnected domain models that automatically maintain the relationships between system elements.
• Requirements—which, as the result of human interpretation, always represent only secondary information on target products/systems—are replaced by primary information, namely functions, interfaces, and properties.

Even though MBSE is truly a logical consequence of systems engineering, the hurdles in practice are enormous:

• Data exchange between product/system manufacturers on the one hand and clients, standards bodies, certification bodies, etc., on the other hand, remains document- and requirement-oriented, even if the data is exchanged electronically.
• Commercial and technical project managers and product/system architects at manufacturers are not familiar with systems thinking or with describing products/systems in terms of functions and interfaces, let alone with formal languages such as SysML, UML, etc.

Finding a viable compromise to resolve this dilemma was our driving force behind MOSES. With MOSES, our goal is to avoid an overly rigid, formal approach to data organization, opting instead for a sufficiently semi-formal one. We aim to keep the interface between the client and the supplier quick and manageable from an organizational standpoint, while at the same time fully exploiting the front-loading potential of systems engineering. Our goal is to provide a uniform user interface from the request for proposal through component specification, and from piece-part verification through system validation.