Digital Engineering

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) defines Digital Engineering as follows:

"an integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of systems’ data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support lifecycle activities from concept through disposal.”

Adapting this DoD-specific definition to all other industries and going into a bit more detail, it would look like this: Digital Engineering is the setting of digital models representing every characteristic of a complex product or system that is to be developed — this modeling process ambitions to create a continuum of digital data and connectivity (Digital Thread).

Engineers' teams involved in a project will then be able to leverage this process throughout the product or system lifecycle by integrating its design, software development, support, and delivery into a more agile, higher-performance product value stream.

What are the benefits of Digital Engineering?

From both a collaborative and a technical perspective, Digital Engineering offers numerous benefits:

  • Improved decision-making
  • Identifying and resolving problems early in the design phase
  • Reduced costs
  • Fostering the reuse of models and frameworks
  • Better communication and collaboration by providing a central repository for all project data
  • Ensuring requirements to be as effective, clear, concise, and achievable as possible
  • Exploring new and innovative design concepts for cutting-edge systems