Using SysML to Elicit a Value Model in Multi-Stakeholder Value-Driven System Design

In recent years, a formal, mathematically rigorous, value-based approach to system design has been proposed within the systems engineering community. This approach stands in contrast to the traditional requirements based approach to system design because of its foundations in decision theory. One of the crucial first steps in the value-based approach is the elicitation of information about all the elements that influence a design or acquisition decisions, namely, all actors, system properties and behavior, preferences, and concerns. This elicitation step requires a formalized, model-based method for capturing these elements of the value network, the basis of the decision maker’s value function. In this paper, we examine previous work in the area of elicitation in system design and define a set of elements necessary to effectively elicit a meaningful value network. We then consider a domain-specific profile as an extension of SysML to formally capture the essential elements of a value network. To illustrate the modeling approach, the profile is applied to a case study of the design of a heads-up display system (iHUD) in order to test the depth of the profile as well as to show the value of the model-based approach in the elicitation process.