Our free system model validation tool guides modeling consistency to reduce errors, aid analyses, and improve quality.

Since its release in December 2019, the SAIC Digital Engineering Validation Tool has been downloaded more than 4,000 times. It represents the largest public release of automated validation rules for SysML models to date. It is intended to guide model development where multiple options are available, the tool ensures that a team of modelers always makes the same choice, creating model consistency. SAIC continues to mature and expand the tool, which now consists of:

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Validation Tool

OUR TOOL'S SET OF VALIDATION RULES AND CUSTOMIZATIONS ENSURES MODELING RIGOR 

Intended to guide model development where multiple options are available, the tool ensures that a team of modelers always makes the same choice, creating model consistency. SAIC continues to mature its popular Digital Engineering Validation Tool, which consists of: 

• SAIC DE Profile (validation rules and customizations) 
• 236 Validation Rules (both language and style) for Dassault Systemes/No Magic's MagicDraw and Cameo Enterprise Architecture 
• Customizations (including methods to connect deeply-nested ports, manage classification and data rights, and conduct failure analysis) 
• A model-based style guide explaining the rules and modeling approach 
• Proof-of-concept profiles for classification markings and failure analysis 
• Example system model (based upon the Ranger lunar probe) 
• Model federation example and template 
• Explanatory Videos 
• A quickstart model template 
• An example UAF enterprise model based on the Ranger lunar probe 
• An example UAF-to-SysML federation mode (also based on Ranger) 
• Revised classification profile (incorporating feedback to be based upon inheritance and usage and not on composition) (new in v2.5). 
• Native support for Cameo 2021x (and final release for 19.0) (as of v2.5) 
• A new optional profile, SW4SysML, intended to support software development and Function Point Analysis. 

Immediate Benefits. Use of the validation rules in our tool should have an immediate and measurable impact on model quality. Style guides and language semantics are automatically enforced. This enables reviews of system content using analysis tools rather than human reviews, reducing review time from weeks to minutes for large system models. The customizations we provide also allow synchronization between the parts that make a system architecture (structure) and the functions they perform (behavior). 

There has been ongoing interest in the development of a set of rules to support UAF; we welcome any and all feedback about our first release (which includes proposed rules specifically designed to invite commentary). 

A recent presentation at the 2023 MBSE Cyber Experience Symposium, Here There Be Dragons:  An Initial Study of Undetected Errors in Unvalidated SysML Models, explored the latent errors present in unvalidated models.  Sixty legacy student models (from the University of Detroit Mercy’s systems engineering program) were analyzed with a subset of the DE Validation Tool rules; 4,619 errors were detected, of which 1,684 were noteworthy. The presentation is available at: https://www.academia.edu/102408822/Here_There_Be_Dragons_An_Initial_Study_of_Undetected_Errors_in_Unvalidated_SysML_Models.  

Comments? We welcome feedback about our approach (and are particularly interested in false positives, negatives, or corner cases related to the rule set); please reach out to us at DigitalEngineering@saic.com. 

Previous Releases: View the previous release notes here.