The Collective & SparxSystems Europe: Models for the public infrastructure
The Dutch company ‘The Collective – model based systems engineers & consultants’ uses the Sparx Systems Product Suite (Enterprise Architect, ProCloudServer and Prolaborate) in customer projects, but also in the development of its own quality management system (ISO9001) and for resource planning.
Wien/Zwijndrecht – Jan de Liefde is the founder and CTO of the Dutch company ‘The Collective – model based systems engineers & consultants’, which mainly models in the field of public infrastructure (water supply and disposal, tunnels, bridges, rail transport, etc.). They use Enterprise Architect, Pro Cloud Server and Prolaborate to provide the many stakeholders in such projects with high-quality information: ‘In the Netherlands, modelling is widespread in public infrastructure projects, something I have never seen in any other country. We use the Sparx Systems Product Suite because it allows us to involve all stakeholders in the complex planning processes and provide them with information.’
Peter Lieber, Managing Director of SparxSystems Europe, comments: ‘Especially in the area of public infrastructure, many projects are very complex and can be prepared in such a way through modelling that they become understandable and comprehensible for all parties involved. The Collective is taking an exemplary approach in the area of public infrastructure, which we hope will spread to other countries.’
Extensive experience in modelling
Founded in 2017, The Collective’s expertise lies in providing integrated design in the fields of infrastructure, manufacturing, water and energy using model-based systems engineering (MBSE). The focus here is on the system model and linking the processes to this model.
Peter Lieber, founder and Managing Director of SparxSystems Europe
The enthusiasm for models goes so far that even meeting minutes are modelled: This ensures traceability between participants, documentation, problems, diagrams, decisions and measures at all times.
‘In our company, we are constantly discussing the effective use of models and frameworks for customer projects. Over the years, we have therefore created a broad range of models for a wide variety of use cases and summarised them in SIGMA. We use Enterprise Architect with SysML as the standard modelling language. We then use Prolaborate to prepare the results graphically in such a way that they are easy to understand for all stakeholders and optimise the communication and decision-making process,’ explains the Design Manager.
However, models are also used internally, for example for the quality management system (ISO9001) and resource planning.
Risk and decision management in Prolaborate (Source: The Collective)
Enhancement options used intensively
Enterprise Architect is praised worldwide for its openness and excellent extensibility. For example, MDG technologies for specific domains and notations can be seamlessly integrated into Enterprise Architect to provide additional toolboxes, UML profiles, patterns, templates and other modelling resources. The Dutch company utilises this capability extensively, not only for public infrastructure projects, but also in the industrial sector.
Specific diagrams and toolboxes have been created in the areas of energy, piping and instrumentation, failure mode and effects analysis, fault tree analysis, management, industrial automation and testing.
SIGMA MBSE Body of Knowledge as part of SIGMA implemented in Prolaborate (Source: The Collective)
In addition, a separate MDG was developed to model systems in accordance with ISA88/IEC 61512 (batch industry): ‘The use of Enterprise Architect in the process industry is not widespread. We have developed an MDG for the (batch) process industry based on the ANSI/ISA S88 standard and extended it with the option of creating piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) and functional block diagrams (FBD),’ explains Jan de Liefde.
The ISA S88 (International Society of Automation) is a standard for batch process control and a design philosophy for describing devices and processes. This standard applies equally to software and manual processes. ‘With our development, both the physical model and the processes and recipes can be modelled in accordance with the standard.’
Prolaborate simplifies broad communication
The design manager remembers that he was thrilled from the very first presentation of Prolaborate that he could now make the content from the models available in a clear graphical visualisation as required.
‘We often realised that management or specialist departments in particular were not familiar with Enterprise Architect. However, we urgently needed a tool like Prolaborate to involve this broad group of people in project management and provide them with the desired information from the models.’
The company therefore began to develop specific profiles for Prolaborate as well, making use of the various discussion and review options as well as the informative visualisation. For example, project management is carried out according to Scrum/Kanban and progress in modelling is continuously visualised via Prolaborate.
‘We want to be a knowledge centre for MBSE and constantly develop ourselves further. We learn a lot from our customers, but we are also happy to pass on our collected and processed knowledge in training courses, workshops or through coaching,’ summarises Jan de Liefde.
Jan de Liefde, founder and CTO of the Dutch company „The Collective – model based systems engineers & consultants“ (Source: The Collective)
Custom properties in Prolaborate (Source: The Collective)
About “The Collective – model based systems engineers & consultants”
The Collective was founded in 2017 and is a (systems) engineering consultancy in the fields of infrastructure, water and industry. We specialise in the use of model-based engineering to support engineering and management activities. We have developed SIGMA as a complementary modular toolkit for Enterprise Architect and Prolaborate to extend their capabilities. SIGMA includes two frameworks (Systems Engineering and C4), various domain-specific toolboxes and diagrams, guidelines, reusable elements, templates, etc. With SIGMA, we can serve a wide range of customers with our engineering and management services.
About SparxSystems Europe
Sparx Systems Pty Ltd (Australia) was founded in 1996 and is the manufacturer of Enterprise Architect, a globally successful UML modelling platform. Enterprise Architect is used for designing and building software systems, business process modelling and modelling any process or system. Enterprise Architect is recognised by over 1 million users for its performance at an unbeatable price. Enterprise Architect is an easy-to-understand, team-based modelling environment that helps companies to analyse, design and create systems that can be accurately understood and documented. With the help of this tool, companies are enabled to collect and visualise the often very dispersed knowledge of teams and departments in a centralised manner.
SparxSystems Software Europe was set up in 2004 to provide the best possible Enterprise Architect service to the many customers in their language and time zone, supporting the entire German-speaking region with licence acquisition, training and consulting. SparxSystems Software Europe is a business unit of the Lieber.Group.
