By Jack Ring on 7/2/2009

 A look at MBSE and SysML in the context of COFES

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By Jack Ring on 11/17/2008

Most of us live in an environment of multiple, interacting factors, each exhibiting an S curve behavior. First phase exhibiting accelerating growth, curling upward. Second phase of approximately constant growth. Third phase of decelerating growth. During the third phase a Phoenix often arises to start a new, upward, S curve. Prof. Adizes, UCLA, provides an S-curve based model in "Corporate Life-cycles" Prof. Leontief adn others have modeled economic life cycles. Sometimes the new S curve gets started early. Sometimes the new curve doesn't kick in until the ramifications of the older S curve have been manifest in various negative or "things aren't what they used to be, who's fault is it?" ways. Many people do not realize that the U.S. has been on a 25 year economic boom, the longest in history. They have simply become accustomed to the constant growth. Too many, not understanding systems, plan ahead as if there is some guarantee of growth. When the S curve starts to bend over (negative acceleration)the first reaction is naievty, then denial, then outrage, then fault finding, etc. ...

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By Jack Ring on 10/21/2008

One viewpoint quantifies the worth of a system by actual or expected Quality, Parsimony and Beauty. Quality in the Phil Crosby sense as "conformance to requirements." Parsimony meaning no sufficient alternative requires less goods in the economic and ecologic sense. Beauty, in the sense of Gelertner's Machine Beauty, Basic Books, 1998.   

Now comes news in  the August proceedings of ACM's SIGGRAPH, The Sum of Your Facial Parts,that a focus group of men and women selected the most attractive faces from a sample set then researchers at Tel Aviv University distilled 234 significant measurements between facial features, including the distances between lips and chin, the forehead and the eyes, and between the eyes. They devised an algorithm that altered an image according to agreed-upon standards of attractiveness while producing a result that left the face completely recognizable.  

Can we similarly devise a list of significant measurements for improving system architectures, functional designs, or object...

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By Jack Ring on 10/1/2008

http://www.pbsrg.com/overview/cib-task-group-61/annual-meeting/

The Performance Based Studies Research Group at Arizona State University is hosting Task Group 61 of the "International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction." The CIB provides a global network for international exchange and cooperation in research and innovation in building and construction, in support of an improved building process and of improved performance of the built environment.

By Jack Ring on 10/1/2008

As societies' problems increase in extent, variety and ambiguity, popularly (mis)labeled "complexity," the design profession is not keeping pace. Failed projects abound and leaders in both sponsor and responder communities seek to ignore the really "wicked" problems. The recent emphasis on System of Systems highlights the intellectual shortfall in dealing with complexity. This presents an emerging, billion dollar opportunity for new methods, techniques and tools for whole system design. Two facets are important. One concerns original and revision design. The other concerns assessment of the viability of the design, i.e., check your work. The latter is prudent at each stage of a whole system design, e.g., conceptual model, chronological model, architecture model, buildable model, as built, as deployed, and as (about to be) applied.

It is hard to assess the viability of a simple system, e.g., a computer program intended to run on a specified piece of hardware, because of the proliferation of cross connections...

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By Jack Ring on 8/7/2008

CAD helps us express our ideas.  Next, CAD will help us have ideas. CAD will proactively prompt inventing and innovating.

Inventing means designing (described by regular COFES participant, David Ullman, P.E., Ph.D., and CEO as "the elaboration of information punctuated by decision).

Innovating means helping others appreciate and leverage your design.

As a VP at 3M noted, Invention turns money into ideas. Innovation turns ideas into money.

Our understanding of the fundamentals of both has increased considerably in this decade through research on how we think, c.f., "The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities" by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. 

Now we can harness the advances in digital electronics, software and social dynamics to take design to the next level. Challenges of extent, variety and ambiguity needn't bother us any more. 

 

By Jack Ring on 8/7/2008

At http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/07-08GreenLightProj.asp you are forewarned that the information technology industry consumes as much energy and has roughly the same carbon “footprint” as the airline industry. Then you can read what UC San Diego is doing.

By Jack Ring on 8/5/2008

Too many special interest groups have camped-on to this bandwagon. For COFES purposes, which sustainability are we addressing (or should we be addressing)?

By Jack Ring on 7/27/2008

By Jack Ring on 7/23/2008

Now that specification-based engineering is being supeseded by modeling how shall we avoid confusion about modeling?

A recent CfP stated "Model-Driven Engineering is about creating, transforming, generating, interpreting, weaving models using modelling languages, tools, etc."

Made me wonder where the problem statement came from that triggers such engineering.

Does the author mean Model-Building Engineering (as in We Are Driven) instead of Model-driven?

If the author described MDE properly, then in what ways is model-based systems engineering, MBSE, distinct from this MDE?

And should we first model the problematic siituation in order to make sure that the engineering effort addresses the right problem?

By Jack Ring on 12/3/2007

The current era of CAD may be augmented upstream with computer-aided invention or creativity and will be augmented downstream with computer-aided innovation. The need exists, the money is there, the technology is here. Only one ingredient missing. I like David G. Ullman’s definition of design, “Elaboration of information punctuated by decision.” The current era of CAD helps designers once their decisions are made and it is time to record the results.

Current CAD also helps evaluate decision options, also called tradeoffs. The forthcoming era of computer-aided creativity or computer-aided invention will help designers much earlier in a project. The Three P’s are one way to think about this: possibilities, probabilities, and pursuits. Possibilities are the kinds of ideas produced by brainstorming, nominal group technique, idea writing and similar methods. Probabilities are the possibilities that survive analysis and assessment. Pursuits are the elaborations of the one to three more promising design options,...

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By Jack Ring on 11/22/2007

Adaptive Intelligent Materials and Systems open new opportunities for MCAD.

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By Jack Ring on 11/22/2007

Dr. Jiang bridges electronic and mechanical engineering with stretchable electronics

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By Jack Ring on 11/2/2007

As societal problems have increased in extent, variety and ambiguity the current era of architecting and engineering by systematic, prescient design is proving inadequate in an increasing number of instances. Instead of laboriously describing the system to be built, we represent behaviors, usages, and benefits that are much more understandable to those who make of buy components to realize the system.

Instead of laboriously producing as cascade of specifications that represent the statics of the system to be built and strive to communicate the dynamics, we flesh out a holonic array of emulatable propositions that enable pragmatic foresight about the dynamics of the sysem to be built.

This frees us to represent the evolution of the system because the model of the system knows enough about the system to generate orchestrated morphs in several dimensions such as gradients on interrelatonships of the components, structure of the components, repertoire of components, implementation technologies, and...

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By Jack Ring on 9/23/2007

I have a spectrum of interests and will appreciate your guidance on which are pertinent, here.

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