Achieving Traceability and Reproducibility for Heterogeneous MBSE Processes using Ontology-Based Orchestration

By: Dirk Friedenberger, Jonas Henschel, Lukas Pirl, Can André Dautel, Andreas Polze

Abstract

The development of complex and safety-critical systems can benefit from robust and integrated MBSE processes. However, the ecosystem of MBSE methods, languages, and tools is fast-evolving and fragmented. MBSE processes are thus often practiced in isolation. This impedes integration, traceability, and reproducibility. This paper presents a process model for the formal description of transformation processes. We further specify an architecture for an execution environment that uses the process model as input. Together, the process model and the execution environment intend to enable automated, versioned, and traceable MBSE processes. The approach is being evaluated in the cross-domain SQuIRRL project, which concerns IT, railway, automotive, and aviation. The evaluation confirms dependency-consistent execution and reproducibility of heterogeneous MBSE transformation processes, thereby improving comparability and collaboration across domains. The metamodels, specification, and reference architecture are available as open source.

Keywords

Model-based systems engineering, Micro model, Transformation, Railway, Aviation, and Automotive

Cite as:

Dirk Friedenberger, Jonas Henschel, Lukas Pirl, Can André Dautel, Andreas Polze, “Achieving Traceability and Reproducibility for Heterogeneous MBSE Processes using Ontology-Based Orchestration”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 25, no. 3 ( 2026), pp. 3:295-308, doi:10.5381/jot.2026.25.3.a23.