New videos on the PRFC YouTube channel!!
The PRFC YouTube channel on MBSE has been in existence for 18 months now …
We now have nearly 300 subscribers, but more important a dozen videos (in French and in English), with more than 10,000 views, and 675 hours of viewing 😉
The most popular video is without context the one in French entitled: Introduction au MBSE avec Arcadia et Capella, with over 2250 views and 200 hours of viewing time.
A newer and more technical video in English: Blank Diagram Basics in Capella, still had over 1,400 views and 80 hours of viewing. And we’ve just added two new videos on the Scenario Diagram, one of the trickiest to master in all modeling tools, UML and SysML included:
These videos are all short extracts from recent remote training courses, and prefigure the library of e-learning modules that we are going to produce in the coming months. They will be supplemented with quizzes, resources, etc. which will be available to PRFC customers. In short, our ambition is to build a complete ‘blended-learning’ offer on MBSE around Arcadia / Capella next year …
Stay tuned and subscribe!
[ssba]First “Capella in Action” public session for 2021 is full!
The first public inter-company ‘Capella 5.0 in action‘ training in English is scheduled over 2 consecutive weeks: 2021 February 17-18, then 24-25.
Please note that this session is now complete.
2020: Review of such a special year …
Who would have believed it ? Some figures:
- 2018: 21 professional air trips, 87 nights at the hotel
- 2019: 17 professional air trips, 57 nights at the hotel
- 2020: 3 professional air trips, 7 nights at the hotel
We had to adapt to this health crisis which banned face-to-face training for 3/4 of the year, and it is probably not over …
From March, the entire PRFC offer gradually switched to ‘remote‘, with the discovery and then the appropriation of many tools such as the Zoom and Teams platforms, but also Socrative, Mentimeter, etc. And also the creation of a MBSE Youtube Channel!
And it works ! I who did not believe in it only 12 months ago, I led more than a dozen remote MBSE training courses, i.e. around 40 days, with very satisfied participants, including some in Sweden, Germany, and even in Australia!
And finally the connections at the airport, the evenings alone at the hotel, I don’t miss all that that much 😉 The planet seems to be quite okay too …
We will therefore continue to work remotely at the start of 2021, both for training activities, but also for consultancy.
And for the first quarter of 2021, we are going to innovate by proposing to split the inter-company training ‘Capella 5.0 in action‘ into 2 times 2 days over 2 consecutive weeks: February 17-18, then 24-25.
PRFC wishes you in any case a very happy new year 2021, with the realization of both your professional and personal aspirations…
[ssba]Last 2020 Public Capella Training Session in English
The last ‘Capella in Action‘ public training session in English for 2020 will take place from December 15 to 18: 8 sessions of 3.5 hours (9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. GMT; 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. GMT+2) from Tuesday to Friday, through the Zoom platform.
And for those who follow the PRFC YouTube Channel, we have added a new video about the Capella Blank Diagram basics… Do not hesitate to subscribe in order to be informed each time a new video is uploaded!
The first English Capella public session took place in August with 4 people from Sweden, Texas, and France. The feedback was very good! 🙂
Summer Remote Session of “Capella in Action”!
If you don’t speak French, or do not want to travel to Toulouse ;-), but you still wish to get trained on Arcadia/Capella, a remote session in English is scheduled from August 18 to 21. It will consist of 7 sessions of 3,5 hours (9:30-13:00; 14:00 -17:30) from Tuesday to Friday morning, through the zoom platform. But take care, there are already only 2 places left …
We take this opportunity to offer a discounted summer rate: €1,990 instead of €2,390 for the complete training. Note: the second registrant from the same company benefits from an even lower price at €1,690 instead of €1,990.
Launch of the PRFC YouTube channel on MBSE!
As noted in a previous post, PRFC switched its MBSE training offer into remote sessions throughout the confinement period and until summer.
To continue in this direction, next to videos in French, we have just published a first public video in English on the brand new PRFC YouTube channel:
This video (and future ones) is a short extract from a one-day training course, and prefigures the library of e-learning modules that we are going to produce.
They will be supplemented with quizzes, crosswords, etc. which will be available to PRFC customers.
In short, our ambition is to build a complete ‘blended-learning’ offer on MBSE around Arcadia / Capella and SysML in the coming months …
Stay tuned and subscribe!
MBSE ‘Remote’ Training Sessions in May
As mentioned in a previous post, PRFC switches its MBSE Training offer to remote sessions throughout the confinement period and until the summer. Do not hesitate to contact us for any intra-company training quote.
For the month of May, we are organizing three one-day MBSE introductory sessions.
One of them will be conducted in English:
- Introduction to MBSE with Arcadia (1d): on 2020/05/20, animated in English by Pascal Roques
MBSE remote Training with PRFC!
In this period of confinement and teleworking, the training activity is still relevant, and even more so!
PRFC offers you to carry out remotely all the MBSE training courses corresponding to the new Training Offer for 2020.
For sessions without tool manipulation, arranged under the categories:
- Seminar ‘Introduction’ in 1 day;
- Workshop ‘Through practice’ in 2 days;
We will continue to offer them on an inter-company basis, thanks to platforms like zoom or Teams.
Thus, the inter-company session of April 21 concerning the one-day training: MBSE with Arcadia is maintained and will be moderated remotely by Pascal Roques (in French).
Another session will be conducted in English on April 30 by Pascal Roques.
For intra-company sessions, we also offer to carry them out remotely via your preferred platform. Regarding the longer training sessions with tools on Capella and SysML with EA or CSM, they will be run in smaller groups, to ensure sufficient interactivity when handling modeling tools.
Intra-company scheduling can also be much more flexible, since we will plan with you a number of 3.5-hour sessions, not necessarily consecutive, depending on the needs of each client and the requirements of the participants
Do not hesitate to contact us to define together the most suitable modern training solution possible!
[ssba]PRFC Training Offer for 2020
PRFC training offer is reorganizing for 2020!
We of course still offer trainings on MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) around two main streams:
And we can organize training sessions either:
- In-House on customer site, on demand, with possibility of customization;
- In inter-companies in Toulouse and Paris, from the PRFC standard catalog;
- Remotely, through platforms like zoom ou Teams.
Our new trainings are progressive, according to your objectives:
- Seminar ‘Introduction’ in 1 day: presentation of MBSE with commented examples
- Workshop ‘Through practice’ in 2 days: use of a modeling language on a paper case study
- Hands-on workshop ‘In action with the tool …’ in 3 or 4 days: use of a modeling language on a case study with a modeling tool
The PRFC website will be progressively updated, with new training sheets, and we will soon be offering inter-company sessions in Toulouse and Paris!
In the meantime, here is already the declination of the offer on both streams:
Capella Day 2019 @Munich
As previously announced, Capella Day 2019, organized by Obeo and Thales, took place in Munich on September 16, with more than 70 participants.
The day was very rich, as foreshadowed by the rich program, with both feedback from industry, and presentations on bridges or integrations with many other engineering tools.
I especially enjoyed the presentation of Stéphane Bonnet, the Thales Capella
expert , who tried to give in less than one hour the maximum of interesting information on the subject!
The basic concepts of Arcadia, then the relationship between model elements and requirements, and the consequences for the test activities, and finally a preview of the new Capella V1.4.
Then we had two very concrete feedback on the use of Capella at RATP and Framatome.
After that, the toolmakers started their round:
- Integration of Scade and medini with Capella (Ansys)
- Integration of Capella with TeamCenter (Siemens)
- Integrating Capella with your own ecosystem of tools (Obeo)
- Model Execution and System Simulation in Capella (Glaway)
- Timing analysis with Tideal (Artal)
- Model-based safety analysis on Capella using Component Fault Treess (Siemens)
- MBSE & PLE: Systematic Reuse of Capella Models with pure::variants (pure-systems)
- Capella integration with Requirements Authoring Tools (The Reuse Company)
All these presentations have confirmed that the ecosystem around Capella is expanding, in a whole lot of different directions!
I especially enjoyed the session of the Chinese company Glaway, which I formed around two years ago in Nanjing, and which showed concrete results of simulation of Capella Data Flow diagrams (xDFB) and finite-state automata. They present the subject again in a format a little more fleshed out at the next Capella webinar tomorrow October 15!
The early simulation of models: this is a subject that has fascinated me since the beginning of my career at Verilog with the ASA tool (SADT + Automata) some thirty years ago …
[ssba]MODELS 2019
This is (more or less) back to school ! 🙂
And it starts strong with the MODELS conference to be held this year in the Center of Munich from September 15 to 20, with a very attractive program.
Last year, we were in Copenhagen in October, with already a program less academic than in previous years, in particular:
- a MBSE meeting on October 16 2018,
- an Industry Day on October 17 2018.
This year, there will be an entire day dedicated to Capella, organized by Obeo and Thales, on September 16: the Capella Day Munich 2019!
It will be a unique opportunity to meet industrial users (Framatome, RATP, etc.), tool vendors (Siemens PLM Software, Artal, pure-systems, the Reuse Company, etc.), as well as the best experts on the subject: not to miss…
Germany is increasingly involved in the MBSE since the previous Capella Day had already taken place in Stuttgart in March 2018.
And there will also be two industrial days, the first dedicated to the automotive sector (Germany requires …), the second more general.
PRFC will of course give you a detailed account of the highlights of this conference: stay tuned!
[ssba]Update of the Clock Radio Capella Model (start)
During my SysML trainings, I have been using for several years now a simple example of a system: the Clock Radio. This is even the main example of my SysML introductory book in French, published by Eyrolles in 2013.
As part of the Clarity project, it seemed natural to do the same exercise with Capella using the Arcadia approach and concepts. I published in 2015 a first version of the model (with Capella 1.0) where I concentrated on the System Analysis level, trying to illustrate the main types of diagrams, but also ensuring the traceability with the operational need expressed in Operational Analysis. Then a second version of the model, with the Logical Architecture level. And finally a third version of the model with the Physical Architecture level and a small example of Viewpoint: Basic Price.
It was high time to update this model, trying to illustrate the new features provided by Capella 1.2.1 and now Capella 1.3.
The first version of the new model is downloadable here. It mainly contains the System Analysis level, because the operational need is very simple 😉 You will find examples of SMCB, SAB, SCDB, SES, SMSM, with several variations of each.
The progressive construction of the model is presented in a small explanatory document. The model and its companion document will be progressively completed with a Logical Architecture level, a Physical Architecture level, then the use of the Requirements add-on and of Property Values …
An example of Exchange Scenario Diagram that was not possible before Capella 1.2.1 is given below. This is a scenario showing how two instances of the same User actor can interact with the Clock Radio.
Happy New Year 2019!
PRFC wishes you the best for 2019, with the implementation of an effective MBSE approach!
Let us do a quick review of 2018 from our side.
- The training activity has been very rich this year: animation of thirty MBSE trainings on customer site, in France and in Europe, mostly on Arcadia / Capella
- Also, several coaching services around the implementation of MBSE on customer projects
- The release of the 8th edition of the French bestseller on UML: UML 2.5 par la pratique (Eyrolles), as well as that of the first French book on Capella (ISTE)
- Finally, participation in several conferences, such as ERTS (Toulouse), Capella Day (Stuttgart) and MODELS (Copenhague)
2019 seems to start on the same basis with already several Arcadia / Capella courses scheduled on customer site in France, Germany and the United Kingdom …
PRFC was at the MODELS 2018 conference in Copenhagen
PRFC had the pleasure of participating once again in the annual MODELS conference (cf. St Malo in 2016) organized this year in the beautiful city of Copenhagen.
20 years already that the first edition, called UML’98, was held in Mulhouse, organized by Pierre-Alain Muller!
To note the significantly more important part of industrial participants than in the past, which is a very good sign for a conference on modeling!
I was mostly interested in the Model-Based Systems Engineering Meeting and in the Industry Day.
The MBSE Meeting started with a very interesting keynote of Ed Seidewitz: SysML v2 and MBSE: The next ten years, Basically the main problem of SysML is its direct filiation with UML… Room for Arcadia/Capella:-)
Then we had a large number of industrial presentations on the MBSE Adoption Challenges:
- David Williams (HCL)
- Maged Khalil (Continental)
- Christian Zingel (AVL)
- Thibaud Thomas (Plastic Omnium)
- Jesko Lamm (Bernafon)
- Yves Bernard (Airbus)
- Stéphane Bonnet (Thalès)
- Marco Ferrogalini (Bombardier Transport)
- Pascal Roques (PRFC)
The next day, a lot of people in the big Amphi for The Industry Day with some well-known presenters:
- Why Industry Does not Care About Models (Bran Selic)
- Automated and Scalable Solutions for Software Testing: The Essential Role of MDE (Lionel Briand)
- Modeling of Business Logic to enhance Business Agility (Markus Völter)
- Model based software development: Experiences from large scale usage (Ericsson)
- MBSE with Arcadia and Capella : rationale, status and perspectives (Stéphane Bonnet)
- Is Open Source a Viable Alternative for Industrial MBE Tools? (Francis Bordeleau)
- Lessons Learned from Model-Based Safety Assessment with SysML and Component Fault Trees (Bosch)
- …
As always, diverse and rewarding encounters and an appointment made in September next year at Munich for MODELS 2019!
Arcadia is a French Standard (AFNOR)!
The ARCADIA method has been standardized with the AFNOR as Experimental Standard Z67-140, by the ‘Engineering and Quality of Software and Systems’ commission:
Technologies de l’information – ARCADIA – Méthode pour l’ingénierie des systèmes soutenue par son langage de modélisation conceptuel – Description Générale – Spécification de la méthode de définition de l’ingénierie et du langage de modélisation
The summary of this standard is as follows:
- Scope
- Terms and definitions
- Specification of the ARCADIA engineering definition method
- General specification of the ARCADIA modeling language
- Specification of ARCADIA modeling language concepts
- Annex A (informative) Description of the ARCADIA method
- Annex B (normative) ARCADIA concepts and perspectives
- Annex C (normative) Relationship between concepts
The document XP Z67-140 was published (in French) in March 2018. It is on sale on the AFNOR shop.
Note: ARCML is the name of the modeling language dedicated to the definition of models that conform to the ARCADIA method.
[ssba]A new training course: “Capella Reader”!
I regularly get requests for Capella trainings that would be shorter than the standard curriculum, for people who will not directly work with the tool on the creation of models, but rather as readers of diagrams made by others.
This may be the case for a client working with a contractor that uses Capella, who wishes to understand well diagrams of both Operational and System Analysis levels which are provided to him/her, in order to collaborate efficiently with the contractor. Or the case of a project leader whose architects and system engineers use Capella on a daily basis, and who must validate diagrams done on the project at all Arcadia levels. Or for a specialty engineer who must understand and leverage Physical Architecture diagrams and maybe Logical ones too.
If you are in one of these cases, this new 2-day training is made for you!
Standard content is possibly ajustable according to Arcadia levels concerned and the types of diagrams you’ll need to master.
Do not hesitate to contact us for any special needs and we’ll forward you a customized offer…
[ssba]CapellaDay 2018 in Stuttgart
PRFC is proud to have been among the speakers of the first Capella Day in Germany!
This One-day conference on the open MBSE solution Capella took place in Stuttgart, more precisely at Thales premises in Ditzingen, on Tuesday 13th March 2018. It attracted more than 60 participants from various companies, mostly from Germany.
The program gathered both Thales gurus Stéphane Bonnet (Capella Design Authority) and Jean-Luc Voirin (Arcadia father and book author), as well as end-users in ArianeGroup and Thales Deutschland, and tools & service providers (Obeo, Artal, pure::systems and PRFC). The Eclipse Foundation was also present to promote the Capella Industry Consortium…
The slides I presented: Guide to Arcadia and Capella successful adoption are available here.
[ssba]
An expanded MBSE training offer for 2018!
- MBSE with XX training contains 66% theory and 33% group reflection on a case study (without tool)
- YY in Action training contains instead 75% of practice (with a modeling tool) and 25% of theory illustrated with examples
MBSE with XX training is a strongly recommended prerequisite of the corresponding training YY in Action.
This new scheme will enable to gradually enrich the offer with new modules, such as:
or:
PRFC was at ERTS 2018
I had the pleasure of attending last week the 9th ERTS2 conférence.
This big event around ‘Embedded Real Time Software & Systems’ takes place every 2 years in Toulouse. This year there were more than 300 registrants from a very large number of companies, with a particular focus on the automotive industry and mainly the autonomous vehicle. Exciting keynotes from Renault and Airbus on the subject …
I took part in the presentations by co-animating with Benoit Viaud (Artal) a session on MBSE entitled Capella to SysML Bridge: a Tooled-up Methodology for MBSE Interoperability with work done within the framework of the Clarity project, and of course I was not far from the Capella stand!
Books on Arcadia and Capella are available!
I have the pleasure to inform you that the long-awaited reference books on the Arcadia method and the Capella MBSE solution are now available from Elsevier / Iste:
- Model-based System and Architecture Engineering with the Arcadia Method, by Jean-Luc Voirin (Thales)
- Jean-Luc Voirin is Systems Technical Director at Thales. A software and system architect, he has worked for 15 years on modeling methods and tools. He is the author of the Arcadia method for model-based system engineering, and is also a coach for deployment of the method.
- The table of contents can be downloaded here
- Systems Architecture Modeling with the Arcadia Method – A Practical Guide to Capella, by Pascal Roques (PRFC)
- Pascal Roques is a Senior Consultant who has been modeling for more than 25 years in various industrial domains, with SADT, OMT and UML, and is now focusing on Model-Based Systems Engineering with SysML and Arcadia/Capella.
- The table of contents can be downloaded here
They both belong to a new set called: Implementation of Model Based System Engineering, in which you can also find a new book on SysML.
[ssba]
PRFC is now Participant Member of the Capella Industry Consortium!
Since September, PRFC has joined the brand new Capella Industry Consortium, under the Polarsys project of the Eclipse Foundation,
whose mission is to host the Capella ecosystem stakeholders in a vendor neutral way with an open governance:
- companies developing complex systems and softwares
- suppliers providing offers on the top of Capella
- academics with a MBSE topic for research need
The goals of the Capella IC are summed up by the following figure: 
At the moment, members of the Capella IC are:
If you want to take part in the Capella ecosystem from the inside, become a member of Capella IC!
[ssba]Eclipse Day Milano
End of September, I had the pleasure to take part to the Italian Eclipse Conference which was hosted by the Department of Computer Science of the University of Milan.
A rich schedule for one day, as there were two parallel sessions from 10h to 17h15, after the Keynote on the Eclipse Working Groups.
It was the occasion to meet again participants of the French June EclipseCon, namely Gaël Blondelle (Eclipse Foundation) and Oliver Prouvost (OPCoach) from Toulouse, but also Lorenzo Bettini and Patrik Suzzi. Maxime Porhel (Obeo) was also there to present All about UX in Sirius. On my side, I did a general presentation of Capella: Capella: the Polarsys solution for MBSE.
The slides of my presentation are available there : Slides (pdf).
[ssba]First Capella Training in China!
First Capella Training in China!
I had the pleasure of facilitating the first Capella training in China last week!
The session took place in Nanjing (historic city of 8 million inhabitants, 300 km from Shanghai …) in Glaway Soft, for the Systems Engineering team. Luckily for me, there was air conditioning everywhere, the temperature being around 40°C during the day and 30°C during the night all week long …
At Glaway Soft in Nanjing
Two people from this company had already started a pilot project with Capella at the beginning of the year and the objective of the training was both to consolidate their first experience but also to train other system or software engineers coming from Shanghai, Nanjing and Chengdu.
It was particularly impressive to do the review of a Capella model with the names of functions and components in ideograms at the end of the training session and to see the interface of the Capella tool in Chinese, translated by Glaway Soft.
There is enormous potential there, as you can imagine, and I am confident that many projects will start quickly in China with Capella …
To be continued!
[ssba]New videos on the PRFC YouTube channel!!
The PRFC YouTube channel on MBSE has been in existence for 18 months now …
We now have nearly 300 subscribers, but more important a dozen videos (in French and in English), with more than 10,000 views, and 675 hours of viewing 😉
The most popular video is without context the one in French entitled: Introduction au MBSE avec Arcadia et Capella, with over 2250 views and 200 hours of viewing time.
A newer and more technical video in English: Blank Diagram Basics in Capella, still had over 1,400 views and 80 hours of viewing. And we’ve just added two new videos on the Scenario Diagram, one of the trickiest to master in all modeling tools, UML and SysML included:
These videos are all short extracts from recent remote training courses, and prefigure the library of e-learning modules that we are going to produce in the coming months. They will be supplemented with quizzes, resources, etc. which will be available to PRFC customers. In short, our ambition is to build a complete ‘blended-learning’ offer on MBSE around Arcadia / Capella next year …
Stay tuned and subscribe!
[ssba]First “Capella in Action” public session for 2021 is full!
The first public inter-company ‘Capella 5.0 in action‘ training in English is scheduled over 2 consecutive weeks: 2021 February 17-18, then 24-25.
Please note that this session is now complete.
2020: Review of such a special year …
Who would have believed it ? Some figures:
- 2018: 21 professional air trips, 87 nights at the hotel
- 2019: 17 professional air trips, 57 nights at the hotel
- 2020: 3 professional air trips, 7 nights at the hotel
We had to adapt to this health crisis which banned face-to-face training for 3/4 of the year, and it is probably not over …
From March, the entire PRFC offer gradually switched to ‘remote‘, with the discovery and then the appropriation of many tools such as the Zoom and Teams platforms, but also Socrative, Mentimeter, etc. And also the creation of a MBSE Youtube Channel!
And it works ! I who did not believe in it only 12 months ago, I led more than a dozen remote MBSE training courses, i.e. around 40 days, with very satisfied participants, including some in Sweden, Germany, and even in Australia!
And finally the connections at the airport, the evenings alone at the hotel, I don’t miss all that that much 😉 The planet seems to be quite okay too …
We will therefore continue to work remotely at the start of 2021, both for training activities, but also for consultancy.
And for the first quarter of 2021, we are going to innovate by proposing to split the inter-company training ‘Capella 5.0 in action‘ into 2 times 2 days over 2 consecutive weeks: February 17-18, then 24-25.
PRFC wishes you in any case a very happy new year 2021, with the realization of both your professional and personal aspirations…
[ssba]Last 2020 Public Capella Training Session in English
The last ‘Capella in Action‘ public training session in English for 2020 will take place from December 15 to 18: 8 sessions of 3.5 hours (9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. GMT; 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. GMT+2) from Tuesday to Friday, through the Zoom platform.
And for those who follow the PRFC YouTube Channel, we have added a new video about the Capella Blank Diagram basics… Do not hesitate to subscribe in order to be informed each time a new video is uploaded!
The first English Capella public session took place in August with 4 people from Sweden, Texas, and France. The feedback was very good! 🙂
Summer Remote Session of “Capella in Action”!
If you don’t speak French, or do not want to travel to Toulouse ;-), but you still wish to get trained on Arcadia/Capella, a remote session in English is scheduled from August 18 to 21. It will consist of 7 sessions of 3,5 hours (9:30-13:00; 14:00 -17:30) from Tuesday to Friday morning, through the zoom platform. But take care, there are already only 2 places left …
We take this opportunity to offer a discounted summer rate: €1,990 instead of €2,390 for the complete training. Note: the second registrant from the same company benefits from an even lower price at €1,690 instead of €1,990.
Launch of the PRFC YouTube channel on MBSE!
As noted in a previous post, PRFC switched its MBSE training offer into remote sessions throughout the confinement period and until summer.
To continue in this direction, next to videos in French, we have just published a first public video in English on the brand new PRFC YouTube channel:
This video (and future ones) is a short extract from a one-day training course, and prefigures the library of e-learning modules that we are going to produce.
They will be supplemented with quizzes, crosswords, etc. which will be available to PRFC customers.
In short, our ambition is to build a complete ‘blended-learning’ offer on MBSE around Arcadia / Capella and SysML in the coming months …
Stay tuned and subscribe!
MBSE ‘Remote’ Training Sessions in May
As mentioned in a previous post, PRFC switches its MBSE Training offer to remote sessions throughout the confinement period and until the summer. Do not hesitate to contact us for any intra-company training quote.
For the month of May, we are organizing three one-day MBSE introductory sessions.
One of them will be conducted in English:
- Introduction to MBSE with Arcadia (1d): on 2020/05/20, animated in English by Pascal Roques
MBSE remote Training with PRFC!
In this period of confinement and teleworking, the training activity is still relevant, and even more so!
PRFC offers you to carry out remotely all the MBSE training courses corresponding to the new Training Offer for 2020.
For sessions without tool manipulation, arranged under the categories:
- Seminar ‘Introduction’ in 1 day;
- Workshop ‘Through practice’ in 2 days;
We will continue to offer them on an inter-company basis, thanks to platforms like zoom or Teams.
Thus, the inter-company session of April 21 concerning the one-day training: MBSE with Arcadia is maintained and will be moderated remotely by Pascal Roques (in French).
Another session will be conducted in English on April 30 by Pascal Roques.
For intra-company sessions, we also offer to carry them out remotely via your preferred platform. Regarding the longer training sessions with tools on Capella and SysML with EA or CSM, they will be run in smaller groups, to ensure sufficient interactivity when handling modeling tools.
Intra-company scheduling can also be much more flexible, since we will plan with you a number of 3.5-hour sessions, not necessarily consecutive, depending on the needs of each client and the requirements of the participants
Do not hesitate to contact us to define together the most suitable modern training solution possible!
[ssba]PRFC Training Offer for 2020
PRFC training offer is reorganizing for 2020!
We of course still offer trainings on MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) around two main streams:
And we can organize training sessions either:
- In-House on customer site, on demand, with possibility of customization;
- In inter-companies in Toulouse and Paris, from the PRFC standard catalog;
- Remotely, through platforms like zoom ou Teams.
Our new trainings are progressive, according to your objectives:
- Seminar ‘Introduction’ in 1 day: presentation of MBSE with commented examples
- Workshop ‘Through practice’ in 2 days: use of a modeling language on a paper case study
- Hands-on workshop ‘In action with the tool …’ in 3 or 4 days: use of a modeling language on a case study with a modeling tool
The PRFC website will be progressively updated, with new training sheets, and we will soon be offering inter-company sessions in Toulouse and Paris!
In the meantime, here is already the declination of the offer on both streams:
Capella Day 2019 @Munich
As previously announced, Capella Day 2019, organized by Obeo and Thales, took place in Munich on September 16, with more than 70 participants.
The day was very rich, as foreshadowed by the rich program, with both feedback from industry, and presentations on bridges or integrations with many other engineering tools.
I especially enjoyed the presentation of Stéphane Bonnet, the Thales Capella
expert , who tried to give in less than one hour the maximum of interesting information on the subject!
The basic concepts of Arcadia, then the relationship between model elements and requirements, and the consequences for the test activities, and finally a preview of the new Capella V1.4.
Then we had two very concrete feedback on the use of Capella at RATP and Framatome.
After that, the toolmakers started their round:
- Integration of Scade and medini with Capella (Ansys)
- Integration of Capella with TeamCenter (Siemens)
- Integrating Capella with your own ecosystem of tools (Obeo)
- Model Execution and System Simulation in Capella (Glaway)
- Timing analysis with Tideal (Artal)
- Model-based safety analysis on Capella using Component Fault Treess (Siemens)
- MBSE & PLE: Systematic Reuse of Capella Models with pure::variants (pure-systems)
- Capella integration with Requirements Authoring Tools (The Reuse Company)
All these presentations have confirmed that the ecosystem around Capella is expanding, in a whole lot of different directions!
I especially enjoyed the session of the Chinese company Glaway, which I formed around two years ago in Nanjing, and which showed concrete results of simulation of Capella Data Flow diagrams (xDFB) and finite-state automata. They present the subject again in a format a little more fleshed out at the next Capella webinar tomorrow October 15!
The early simulation of models: this is a subject that has fascinated me since the beginning of my career at Verilog with the ASA tool (SADT + Automata) some thirty years ago …
[ssba]MODELS 2019
This is (more or less) back to school ! 🙂
And it starts strong with the MODELS conference to be held this year in the Center of Munich from September 15 to 20, with a very attractive program.
Last year, we were in Copenhagen in October, with already a program less academic than in previous years, in particular:
- a MBSE meeting on October 16 2018,
- an Industry Day on October 17 2018.
This year, there will be an entire day dedicated to Capella, organized by Obeo and Thales, on September 16: the Capella Day Munich 2019!
It will be a unique opportunity to meet industrial users (Framatome, RATP, etc.), tool vendors (Siemens PLM Software, Artal, pure-systems, the Reuse Company, etc.), as well as the best experts on the subject: not to miss…
Germany is increasingly involved in the MBSE since the previous Capella Day had already taken place in Stuttgart in March 2018.
And there will also be two industrial days, the first dedicated to the automotive sector (Germany requires …), the second more general.
PRFC will of course give you a detailed account of the highlights of this conference: stay tuned!
[ssba]Update of the Clock Radio Capella Model (start)
During my SysML trainings, I have been using for several years now a simple example of a system: the Clock Radio. This is even the main example of my SysML introductory book in French, published by Eyrolles in 2013.
As part of the Clarity project, it seemed natural to do the same exercise with Capella using the Arcadia approach and concepts. I published in 2015 a first version of the model (with Capella 1.0) where I concentrated on the System Analysis level, trying to illustrate the main types of diagrams, but also ensuring the traceability with the operational need expressed in Operational Analysis. Then a second version of the model, with the Logical Architecture level. And finally a third version of the model with the Physical Architecture level and a small example of Viewpoint: Basic Price.
It was high time to update this model, trying to illustrate the new features provided by Capella 1.2.1 and now Capella 1.3.
The first version of the new model is downloadable here. It mainly contains the System Analysis level, because the operational need is very simple 😉 You will find examples of SMCB, SAB, SCDB, SES, SMSM, with several variations of each.
The progressive construction of the model is presented in a small explanatory document. The model and its companion document will be progressively completed with a Logical Architecture level, a Physical Architecture level, then the use of the Requirements add-on and of Property Values …
An example of Exchange Scenario Diagram that was not possible before Capella 1.2.1 is given below. This is a scenario showing how two instances of the same User actor can interact with the Clock Radio.
Happy New Year 2019!
PRFC wishes you the best for 2019, with the implementation of an effective MBSE approach!
Let us do a quick review of 2018 from our side.
- The training activity has been very rich this year: animation of thirty MBSE trainings on customer site, in France and in Europe, mostly on Arcadia / Capella
- Also, several coaching services around the implementation of MBSE on customer projects
- The release of the 8th edition of the French bestseller on UML: UML 2.5 par la pratique (Eyrolles), as well as that of the first French book on Capella (ISTE)
- Finally, participation in several conferences, such as ERTS (Toulouse), Capella Day (Stuttgart) and MODELS (Copenhague)
2019 seems to start on the same basis with already several Arcadia / Capella courses scheduled on customer site in France, Germany and the United Kingdom …
PRFC was at the MODELS 2018 conference in Copenhagen
PRFC had the pleasure of participating once again in the annual MODELS conference (cf. St Malo in 2016) organized this year in the beautiful city of Copenhagen.
20 years already that the first edition, called UML’98, was held in Mulhouse, organized by Pierre-Alain Muller!
To note the significantly more important part of industrial participants than in the past, which is a very good sign for a conference on modeling!
I was mostly interested in the Model-Based Systems Engineering Meeting and in the Industry Day.
The MBSE Meeting started with a very interesting keynote of Ed Seidewitz: SysML v2 and MBSE: The next ten years, Basically the main problem of SysML is its direct filiation with UML… Room for Arcadia/Capella:-)
Then we had a large number of industrial presentations on the MBSE Adoption Challenges:
- David Williams (HCL)
- Maged Khalil (Continental)
- Christian Zingel (AVL)
- Thibaud Thomas (Plastic Omnium)
- Jesko Lamm (Bernafon)
- Yves Bernard (Airbus)
- Stéphane Bonnet (Thalès)
- Marco Ferrogalini (Bombardier Transport)
- Pascal Roques (PRFC)
The next day, a lot of people in the big Amphi for The Industry Day with some well-known presenters:
- Why Industry Does not Care About Models (Bran Selic)
- Automated and Scalable Solutions for Software Testing: The Essential Role of MDE (Lionel Briand)
- Modeling of Business Logic to enhance Business Agility (Markus Völter)
- Model based software development: Experiences from large scale usage (Ericsson)
- MBSE with Arcadia and Capella : rationale, status and perspectives (Stéphane Bonnet)
- Is Open Source a Viable Alternative for Industrial MBE Tools? (Francis Bordeleau)
- Lessons Learned from Model-Based Safety Assessment with SysML and Component Fault Trees (Bosch)
- …
As always, diverse and rewarding encounters and an appointment made in September next year at Munich for MODELS 2019!
Arcadia is a French Standard (AFNOR)!
The ARCADIA method has been standardized with the AFNOR as Experimental Standard Z67-140, by the ‘Engineering and Quality of Software and Systems’ commission:
Technologies de l’information – ARCADIA – Méthode pour l’ingénierie des systèmes soutenue par son langage de modélisation conceptuel – Description Générale – Spécification de la méthode de définition de l’ingénierie et du langage de modélisation
The summary of this standard is as follows:
- Scope
- Terms and definitions
- Specification of the ARCADIA engineering definition method
- General specification of the ARCADIA modeling language
- Specification of ARCADIA modeling language concepts
- Annex A (informative) Description of the ARCADIA method
- Annex B (normative) ARCADIA concepts and perspectives
- Annex C (normative) Relationship between concepts
The document XP Z67-140 was published (in French) in March 2018. It is on sale on the AFNOR shop.
Note: ARCML is the name of the modeling language dedicated to the definition of models that conform to the ARCADIA method.
[ssba]A new training course: “Capella Reader”!
I regularly get requests for Capella trainings that would be shorter than the standard curriculum, for people who will not directly work with the tool on the creation of models, but rather as readers of diagrams made by others.
This may be the case for a client working with a contractor that uses Capella, who wishes to understand well diagrams of both Operational and System Analysis levels which are provided to him/her, in order to collaborate efficiently with the contractor. Or the case of a project leader whose architects and system engineers use Capella on a daily basis, and who must validate diagrams done on the project at all Arcadia levels. Or for a specialty engineer who must understand and leverage Physical Architecture diagrams and maybe Logical ones too.
If you are in one of these cases, this new 2-day training is made for you!
Standard content is possibly ajustable according to Arcadia levels concerned and the types of diagrams you’ll need to master.
Do not hesitate to contact us for any special needs and we’ll forward you a customized offer…
[ssba]CapellaDay 2018 in Stuttgart
PRFC is proud to have been among the speakers of the first Capella Day in Germany!
This One-day conference on the open MBSE solution Capella took place in Stuttgart, more precisely at Thales premises in Ditzingen, on Tuesday 13th March 2018. It attracted more than 60 participants from various companies, mostly from Germany.
The program gathered both Thales gurus Stéphane Bonnet (Capella Design Authority) and Jean-Luc Voirin (Arcadia father and book author), as well as end-users in ArianeGroup and Thales Deutschland, and tools & service providers (Obeo, Artal, pure::systems and PRFC). The Eclipse Foundation was also present to promote the Capella Industry Consortium…
The slides I presented: Guide to Arcadia and Capella successful adoption are available here.
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An expanded MBSE training offer for 2018!
- MBSE with XX training contains 66% theory and 33% group reflection on a case study (without tool)
- YY in Action training contains instead 75% of practice (with a modeling tool) and 25% of theory illustrated with examples
MBSE with XX training is a strongly recommended prerequisite of the corresponding training YY in Action.
This new scheme will enable to gradually enrich the offer with new modules, such as:
or:
PRFC was at ERTS 2018
I had the pleasure of attending last week the 9th ERTS2 conférence.
This big event around ‘Embedded Real Time Software & Systems’ takes place every 2 years in Toulouse. This year there were more than 300 registrants from a very large number of companies, with a particular focus on the automotive industry and mainly the autonomous vehicle. Exciting keynotes from Renault and Airbus on the subject …
I took part in the presentations by co-animating with Benoit Viaud (Artal) a session on MBSE entitled Capella to SysML Bridge: a Tooled-up Methodology for MBSE Interoperability with work done within the framework of the Clarity project, and of course I was not far from the Capella stand!
Books on Arcadia and Capella are available!
I have the pleasure to inform you that the long-awaited reference books on the Arcadia method and the Capella MBSE solution are now available from Elsevier / Iste:
- Model-based System and Architecture Engineering with the Arcadia Method, by Jean-Luc Voirin (Thales)
- Jean-Luc Voirin is Systems Technical Director at Thales. A software and system architect, he has worked for 15 years on modeling methods and tools. He is the author of the Arcadia method for model-based system engineering, and is also a coach for deployment of the method.
- The table of contents can be downloaded here
- Systems Architecture Modeling with the Arcadia Method – A Practical Guide to Capella, by Pascal Roques (PRFC)
- Pascal Roques is a Senior Consultant who has been modeling for more than 25 years in various industrial domains, with SADT, OMT and UML, and is now focusing on Model-Based Systems Engineering with SysML and Arcadia/Capella.
- The table of contents can be downloaded here
They both belong to a new set called: Implementation of Model Based System Engineering, in which you can also find a new book on SysML.
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PRFC is now Participant Member of the Capella Industry Consortium!
Since September, PRFC has joined the brand new Capella Industry Consortium, under the Polarsys project of the Eclipse Foundation,
whose mission is to host the Capella ecosystem stakeholders in a vendor neutral way with an open governance:
- companies developing complex systems and softwares
- suppliers providing offers on the top of Capella
- academics with a MBSE topic for research need
The goals of the Capella IC are summed up by the following figure: At the moment, members of the Capella IC are:
If you want to take part in the Capella ecosystem from the inside, become a member of Capella IC!
[ssba]Eclipse Day Milano
End of September, I had the pleasure to take part to the Italian Eclipse Conference which was hosted by the Department of Computer Science of the University of Milan.
A rich schedule for one day, as there were two parallel sessions from 10h to 17h15, after the Keynote on the Eclipse Working Groups.
It was the occasion to meet again participants of the French June EclipseCon, namely Gaël Blondelle (Eclipse Foundation) and Oliver Prouvost (OPCoach) from Toulouse, but also Lorenzo Bettini and Patrik Suzzi. Maxime Porhel (Obeo) was also there to present All about UX in Sirius. On my side, I did a general presentation of Capella: Capella: the Polarsys solution for MBSE.
The slides of my presentation are available there : Slides (pdf).
[ssba]First Capella Training in China!
First Capella Training in China!
I had the pleasure of facilitating the first Capella training in China last week!
The session took place in Nanjing (historic city of 8 million inhabitants, 300 km from Shanghai …) in Glaway Soft, for the Systems Engineering team. Luckily for me, there was air conditioning everywhere, the temperature being around 40°C during the day and 30°C during the night all week long …
At Glaway Soft in Nanjing
Two people from this company had already started a pilot project with Capella at the beginning of the year and the objective of the training was both to consolidate their first experience but also to train other system or software engineers coming from Shanghai, Nanjing and Chengdu.
It was particularly impressive to do the review of a Capella model with the names of functions and components in ideograms at the end of the training session and to see the interface of the Capella tool in Chinese, translated by Glaway Soft.
There is enormous potential there, as you can imagine, and I am confident that many projects will start quickly in China with Capella …
To be continued!
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