A Process Centered Environment for Complex System Development

System World proposes to develop a Process Centered Environment (PCE) for definition and use of process models that are reusable, tailorable, integratable and executable. Process models, captured in the PCE, provide the basis for performing work on projects. They inform engineers of work to be performed and workflow, and are the basis for infrastructure tailoring. The primary goal of Phase I is to develop process modeling paradigms and prove their value through prototype analysis of a sample navy problem. System development activities, for example requirements definition, situation assessment, simulation based design, and decision analysis are human intensive. A significant part of our effort will concentrate on modeling paradigms supporting human activity modeling, based on investigations by IntelliTek Inc. and the Army Research Laboratory. The domain engineering approach to Simulation Based Design, developed at the University of Arizona, will be used to support process prototyping, through capture of process knowledge, creation of process taxonomies and process variants, and definition of process coupling rules. Concepts for capture and visualization of process models will be demonstrated on a Vanderbuilt University environment that is tailorable for different modeling paradigms. Concepts for Simulation Based Process Engineering will be demonstrated in the Phase I option.