Agile Hardware Development: Using SysGit to Deliver Modular and Open Systems

American security increasingly depends on the technological superiority of our defense industrial base. As near-peer adversaries rapidly scale production, there is an urgent need to accelerate the acquisition and development of U.S. vehicles and weapon systems that are adaptive to evolving threats, and responsive to warfighter demands. Within the U.S. Department of Defense, there is growing recognition that agile hardware development holds the promise of ushering in transformative improvements that enable programs to meet schedule and budget expectations while improving system quality, as supported by the 2019 codification of Modular Open Systems Approaches (MOSA). However, many U.S. Defense Industrial Base organizations have struggled to implement agile practices because they lack critical foundational components, namely a format to represent system data that is shareable between all stakeholders and a secure data architecture to facilitate parallel path hardware iteration across distributed engineering teams. 

SysGit, a digital engineering platform, was founded in 2019 by engineers with experience at SpaceX and Slingshot Aerospace to galvanize the adoption of agile hardware development across DoD and DIB organizations by addressing these gaps through open standards and existing infrastructure that is already commonplace across the U.S. Defense Industrial Base. Primarily, SysGit is built on:

Seamless use of SysML v2, the open systems modeling language developed by the OMG consortium, which includes many DIB organizations. SysML v2 supports enhanced model precision and quality, while supporting interoperability with other engineering models and tools, as well as usability for a wide range of engineering personas. SysML v2 introduces textual notation, allowing engineers to treat hardware as code, and a standard API.

Git providers as the Storage Mechanism, including GitHub, GitLab, and Gitea. DIB organizations have already made significant investments in these widely used source control systems for software development. SysGit transposes Git’s familiar functions, including branching and pull requests, for hardware engineering, while inheriting the security posture of the underlying Git provider.

Building on years of progress to integrate Model-Based Systems Engineering, SysGit’s innovative approach enables organizations to finally realize agile hardware development, while supporting the following digital transformation priorities of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base:

Built on Git, SysGit natively supports parallel path and distributed development practices.

This enables DIB organizations to improve speed, efficiency, and quality of hardware development. Organizations store and iterate on hardware designs in Git, accessing revision control and tried-and-true functions such as branching and pull requests, while prioritizing early verification & validation, and introducing automation. This allows teams to make informed decisions, decreases rework, and reduces costly delays during technical design review milestones.

SysGit is compliant with open standards and existing infrastructure investments. 

Maintaining the underlying source of truth directly in SysML v2 ensures all data capture and deliverables adhere to open standards, as required by MOSA. By leveraging Git providers as the data storage mechanism for SysML v2, SysGit extends an organization’s existing infrastructure investment in GitLab and GitHub, including the existing security posture. SysGit doesn't actually store data, it facilitates data storage within the Git provider infrastructure while making the data relevant to the existing personas. This enhances and elevates existing infrastructure without having to accredit a new external tool that requires its own bespoke set of architecture to be maintained, minimizing the operational overhead of introducing a new platform and providing an SBOM reduction.

SysGit is easily deployed into highly secure environments.

Employing a Zero Trust approach that protects core IP, SysGit inherits the security posture of the underlying Git provider, integrating existing DevSecOps workflows, CI/CD pipelines, SSO support, RBAC settings, and SCIM. A scalable deployment offers both cloud-based and on-premises solutions, and is adaptable to different operational environments. 

SysGit doesn’t require specialized systems engineering knowledge to capture a complex system.

Role-based interfaces, combined with SysML v2 Textual Notation, opens access to system data to a broad array of engineer personas, including engineers, project managers, and acquisitions officials. This enables untrained, but technical individuals to interface directly with the system, including warfighters, OEMs, and program management offices. The adoption risk to DoD personnel is minimized when considering the extensive use and longevity of both Model-Based Systems Engineering and Git in commercial markets, coupled with readily available documentation for technical support. 

SysGit is committed to supporting American engineering by providing software technologies that enable rapidly adaptable, precise, and efficient work on complex national security projects, enabling them to deliver above thresholds, on time and on budget.