Evaluating ARCADIA/Capella vs. OOSEM/SysML for System Architecture Development

Systems Engineering is catching pace in many segments of product manufacturing industries. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is the formalized application of modeling to perform systems engineering activities. In order to effectively utilize the complete potential of MBSE, a methodology consisting of appropriate processes, methods and tools is a key necessity. In the last decade, several MBSE projects have been implemented in industries varying from aerospace and defense to automotive, healthcare and transportation. The Systems Modeling Language (SysML) standard has been a key enabler of these projects at many companies. Although SysML is capable of providing a rich representation of any system through various viewpoints, the journey towards adopting SysML to realize the true potential of MBSE has been a challenge. Among all, one of the common roadblocks faced by systems engineers across industries has been the software engineering-based nature of SysML which leads to difficulties in grasping the modeling concepts for people that do not possess a software engineering background. As a consequence, developing a system (or a system of systems) architecture model using SysML has been a challenging task for many engineers even after a decade of its inception and multiple successive iterations of the language specification. Being a modeling language, SysML is method-agnostic, but its associated limitations outweigh the advantages. ARCADIA (Architecture Analysis and Design Integrated Approach) is a systems and software architecture engineering method based on architecture-centric and model-based engineering activities.