Category: Vitech

Who Needs a Metamodel?

What is a metamodel? The English prefix “meta” comes directly from the Greek meaning “beyond” or “after.” That has been extended in English usage to mean “about,” connoting a higher level of abstraction. Thus, “meta-cognition” is “thinking about thinking” and a metamodel is a model of a model. Why have …

Mark Simons, Systems Engineer

Mark Simons once found himself sitting in a circle at his then 8-year-old daughter’s yoga class. Participants went around and introduced themselves, explaining what they did for a living. Realizing that no one in the room would be likely to know about systems engineering, Simons thought quickly about how to …

Vitech: Best of 2018

As one year turns into another, we are looking back to see what compelled our attention in 2018. What were the ideas and stories about systems engineering that caught our eye? Where were we challenged to re-think certain assumptions we held, and how did that change us? Where did we …

What does it mean to be model-BASED?

The Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge* defines a model as “a simplified representation of a system at some particular point in time or space intended to promote understanding of the real system.” There is broad acceptance that models are limited or simplified representations of a reality of interest. There is …