Building an Addition to the

Tower of Babel
OMG MBSE-Inspired Actionable Enterprise
Architecture Summit
Sean McGervey
Systems Engineer
Johns Hopkins University | Applied Physics Laboratory

27 March 2019
Why the Tower of Babel…?
• The Tower of Babel is
symbolic of a grand, unifying
endeavor: coming together
to build a tower so tall that it
could reach Heaven
• In the Bible, God thwarts
Mankind’s efforts by causing
everyone to speak different
languages
• Nowadays, Mankind has
evolved to thwart its own
efforts!
• And just as with the Tower of Program Managers Reviewing
Babel, we’re thwarting the Engineers’ Work Products in
grand, unifying endeavor of Ancient Times
MBSE with… languages

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From a Single Mustard Seed
Tree of Languages Sprouted from SysML… oops, Latin

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MBSE: The New Tower of Babel…?
More Languages are Created Every Day as MBSE Use Expands

Enterprise Systems Engineering

Product Systems Engineering

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Driven in Part by Varied Perspectives and Needs
What Do You Mean by “State”?

Geopolitical Region? Model Element Type? Pos., Vel., Acc. Info?

• Words are open to interpretation, even when they carry the same
“meaning”
• For example, “State” as position, velocity, acceleration:
- Is that expressed in NED or LLA? WRT a center of gravity or geometry?

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Driven in Part by Varied Perspectives and Needs
Two “Car” Models Answering Different Questions

• On the right, both models are

valid but each models a “Car”
differently to help answer
different questions about it
• Because they disagree on
how things are modeled at a
conceptual level, integration
and interoperability of these
models is difficult
• Ontologies help us agree on
how concepts are modeled,
which is critical for achieving
model interoperability

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Lessons Learned from Lego™
The SysML “Block” is Similar to Lego™ Elements like… umm, “Block”

• Lego™ products are not

just popular for the
predefined designs that
can be built, but for the
reusable blocks
• While an entire predefined
design has limited reuse
value, the blocks have
tremendous reuse value
• Generic blocks may be
more broadly applicable,
but are less specifically
useful

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Reuse Should Be Pre-Planned, Not Opportunistic
Lessons from Product Line Architecture

• Product lines enable reuse at each

phase of the systems engineering
lifecycle
• Everything including product
requirements, features, and
configurations can be reused during
product development
• But this paradigm is only useful if the
“right” elements of reuse are identified
and codified in the product line
architecture

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Reuse Should Be Pre-Planned, Not Opportunistic
…And that Applies to Language Elements as Well as Product Elements

Reusing a component means reusing all the requirements

and architectural decisions that drove its development

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As Another Example… Let’s Model a Dirigible!!
We Could Extend SysML to Be DirigibleML, Rather than Use “Blocks”

Profiles (“languages”) should not only

contain the Stereotypes (“vocabulary”)
but also the Validation Rules
(“grammar”) used to enforce good
modeling (“writing”)

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Languages Are More Than Vocabulary
Profiles Must Contain Stereotypes… and an Ontology with Validation Rules
Car Ontology

Car Profile in Use

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“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”
(I know it doesn’t fit the “Tower of Babel” theme, but Marvel is everywhere!)

• Profiles provide engineers with the awesome ability to create their

own languages, but we can’t do that in a vacuum
• We need to look to standards bodies like OMG and professional
societies like INCOSE to help unify our efforts
• We need to ensure that our profiles are developed as languages
complete with vocabulary, syntax, and grammar
• We need to leverage common, foundational ontologies so that our
languages all have a common “mother tongue”

We can successfully build additions on to our

Tower of Babel if we have the discipline not to
divide ourselves with languages

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Questions…?