We’re continuing our blog series on using Syndeia digital pipelines to execute real world use cases in systems engineering. In Part 2, we demonstrated a digital pipeline that generated periodic reports of requirement-test case assignments and results from an existing digital thread. In this post, we take on a more difficult task to automate, creating and maintaining the digital thread itself.
In some respects, assembling disparate parts into a new working system is the central challenge of engineering and calls for both creativity and engineering judgement. But with systems comprising thousands of requirements, parts, software modules, tasks and test results, there is a strong need for an automated assist to keep track of all the relationships in the digital thread being built.
In this example, we use Syndeia, the digital thread platform from Intercax, to create and save relations between requirements in Jama Connect and parts in Windchill. Syndeia does the matching on the basis of an attribute in the requirement that identifies the name of the part. Syndeia creates the relation in its internal graph database and writes the URL of the connected part back into a second attribute in the requirement. This final step enables the requirement’s owner to confirm the existence of the connection and navigate to the PLM entry without calling up the Syndeia interface (assuming they have access to the PLM repository).
Because new requirements and parts are added during the course of development, these tasks are configured as a digital pipeline that can be run at regular intervals. Note that this requires the pipeline to check for existing relations and not duplicate them on subsequent runs. It also confines the scope to one digital thread project; other threads specifying other products or product variants would require a separate pipeline.
In the accompanying video, we will demonstrate the pipeline in action.
This process still requires the requirements engineer to enter the Windchill part name manually. As Syndeia incorporates AI into the platform, users will be able to set up semantic criteria to recommend matches between requirements and parts, expediting the process even further.
In the next post in this series, we will demonstrate another common use case, using a pipeline to extract mass properties from a SolidWorks CAD file and post a daily report on Confluence.
This blog post is the 3rd in a series of posts and demonstrations that we will share, focusing on automating digital engineering workflows and use cases with Syndeia Pipelines.