Holistic Engineering & Digital Thread
Find instead of seek
Engineering complex systems requires access to a wide range of data and information. How can we ensure that tracking down this data does not become a time-consuming exercise that leaves less and less room for actual development work?
Digital Thread Enablers
Storing engineering data in document-like structures is a significant hindrance to project work. Instead, it should be possible to display individually identifiable information or data elements (artifacts) in both a phase-related (horizontal) and a cross-phase (vertical) context.
Engineering artifacts and traceability
If these artifacts can be individually referenced via a UID (Unique Identifier), artifacts from different phases can be linked to form ‘impact chains’. These impact chains are the core of traceability. They provide insights into many typical questions.
- Which artifacts along the lifecycle implement a specific function?
- How is a certain capability tested and what is the desired result? What is the actual result?
- Which engineering elements are affected by an error that occurred during the test?
The advantages of this concept
An artifact-based approach to storing and managing engineering data is characterized by these properties:
- Development artifacts are visible and accessible also to users of other authoring tools outside their ‘native’ authoring tools.
- Individual granular artifacts can be individually identified and linked throughout the entire lifecycle by means of their UID.
These are precisely the fundamental requirements for the digital thread in engineering projects. As a common thread, the digital thread links artifacts across the boundaries of domains and tools. With the help of the digital thread, we put assets that build on each other into a logical context and create transparency about project progress and the coverage of requirements at any required granularity.
Realizing the digital thread
The digital thread with the correct resolution of all links across variants and versions of artifacts is the prerequisite for immediate access to all information and data needed during development. Without delay, without manual checking for up-to-dateness or completeness.
OSLC as a technology for being able to address data at a granular level in combination with Global Configuration Management provides the environment in which engineering experts from all domains can concentrate on their actual creative tasks.
Best practices for holistic engineering
By holistic engineering, we mean integrated and continuous engineering based on tried and tested principles. Daily practice shows that there are interdependencies when combining different engineering principles, process patterns and tools.
- For every engineering problem, there is a solution enabled by a principle or a tool feature. Unfortunately, the principles and/or tools cannot always be combined without conflict. Some are mutually exclusive or interfere with each other.
- We have set up the ‘Holistic Engineering’ working group. The aim of this working group is to work with our customers and partners to analyze the combination of engineering principles, their mutual interdependencies and any useful exclusion criteria.
- The aim is to identify best-practice constellations that complement each other harmoniously.
- One current question, for example, is whether it is possible to combine VaMoS with Global Configuration Management. This would make it possible to decouple the impact of changes on the variants over time.
Are you interested in joining our ‘Holistic Engineering’ working group or would you like to participate in the results? Please contact us by e-mail at
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