Towards “Design for Interoperability” in the context of Systems Engineering

In product development, early decisions made within the requirements specification and design phase have significant impact on overall functionality, quality and lifecycle cost of the product. In Systems Engineering, these oftentimes iterative design phases are steered by underlying development models, providing processes, guidelines and best practices. One family of guidelines are the “Design for X” (DfX) tools or principles. In the development of mechatronic systems e.g. production systems, traditionally the mechanical, electric and software domain are to be distinguished. Over time, driven by trends of digitalization, communication and interconnection of systems, the product innovation and thus the required development effort has been shifting from the mechanical domain towards the software domain. The question of system interoperability thereby is of a fundamental nature. This is especially relevant within the current paradigms of Industry 4.0 and the Digital Twin.