Conceptual design support by MBSE: Established best practices

Conceptual design of a product or a system is the preliminary phase of the system's life cycle. Innovative ideas arise, high-level decisions are made, key technologies are identified, alternatives are compared, and major components are selected. Conversely, model-based systems engineering (MBSE) targets the entire life cycle of systems' design and operation. MBSE is supported by tools for visualization, connecting requirements and structure, and promising productivity increase and better traceability. MBSE offers nonspecific support for conceptual design, and the interpretations for Model-Based-Conceptual-Design (MBCD) are still evolving. This chapter reviews current MBCD implementation trends. A comparison of these trends to existing document-based conceptual design methods produces best-practices and gap analysis. The Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is used for MBSE representation while Integrated-Conceptual-Design-Method (ICDM) represents the document-based methods for Conceptual-Design. ICDM was selected for its extensive toolset and concise process, while SysML was selected for its inherent extendibility and popularity among the MBSE community. This analysis highlights conceptual design processes and constructs, and the current capabilities of supporting tools. The chapter emphasizes MBSE features that flawlessly support conceptual design and the needed tailoring and extensions. Value-proposition is discussed on the merits of MBSE use within a conceptual design. The chapter is of interest to practitioners, methodologists, and tool vendors.