Renewable Fuels Production Facility – Advanced MBSE Implementation
The Challenge
Multiple engineering teams were working in silos on a major renewable fuels facility. Process design, reliability targets, and economic forecasts existed in separate documents with no formal linkage, leading to misalignment, rework, and the risk of delivering a facility that couldn't meet its business objectives.
The Outcome
Reduced engineering rework by 40% by creating a single-source-of-truth digital model. Ensured perfect alignment between technical specifications and lifecycle cost assumptions, eliminating the risk of design-build-operate disconnects.
Our Approach
We implemented Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) principles to create a unified digital model that linked functional requirements to system performance, reliability targets to equipment specifications, and capital costs to operational outcomes. This wasn't a document—it was a living architecture that enforced consistency across all engineering domains.
Key Methods & Tools
SysML-Inspired Framework
Established formal language for describing system requirements, functional behavior, and physical implementation across process, mechanical, electrical, and control domains.
KIAME© Execution Architecture
Applied our proprietary multi-level execution framework to ensure requirements traced from business objectives through system functions to component specifications.
Fidelis for Reliability Block Diagrams
Integrated RAM models directly into system architecture, ensuring reliability targets weren't afterthoughts but foundational design constraints.
DECA® for Energy-Mass-Economic Flow
Modeled material and energy flows alongside cost drivers, enabling integrated optimization of process efficiency and economic performance.
Behind the Scenes: Proof of Depth
- •Full traceability from business objectives → system functions → component specifications, ensuring every design decision was defensible
- •Integrated RAM models within system architecture, making reliability a design input rather than a post-design verification
- •Enforced contractual accountability via KVB-C2M® principles, ensuring vendors delivered against integrated performance targets
- •Created change impact analysis capability, allowing teams to understand downstream consequences before implementing design changes
Business Impact
The MBSE approach transformed how the organization managed engineering complexity. What used to be a coordination nightmare became a traceable, auditable system where changes propagated automatically and conflicts surfaced immediately. The 40% reduction in rework translated directly to schedule compression and cost savings.
More importantly, the facility owners gained confidence that their facility would perform as modeled—because the model and the design were one and the same.