An Investigation of MBSE Practices across the Contractual Boundary

One of the key impediments to the expansion of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) practice across the lifecycle, particularly in competitive tendering environments, is the continued reliance on documents to define the contractual interface between the acquirer and the supplier. This paper describes the collaborative research project between the University of South Australia (UniSA), the Defence Systems Innovation Centre (DSIC), and the Defence Science Technology Organisation (DSTO) that is investigating the capability of the DSTO Whole-of- System Analytical Framework (WSAF) to supplant contractual documents within the tender process and the degree to which the model passed from acquirer through the contractual interface can be used by the supplier as the basis of their tender response and subsequent systems development. The paper opens with background material and then describes the “learning-by-doing” approach that is being employed. This is followed by a description of methods and tools used to support the design of the tender response and the capture of the design rationale in the same MBSE environment used to capture the project definition. The paper concludes with a discussion section that surfaces the key issues and challenges inherent in utilising this MBSE approach across the contractual boundary and ways that the selected approach could address these.