Modern warships are software-heavy, system-of-systems machines—built from millions of parts and stitched together across C4ISR, networks, power, combat systems, and hull/mechanical domains. Yet early ship design still leans on processes born in a document-driven era, where requirements live in spreadsheets, specs, slide decks, and tribal knowledge—and when requirements change, the risk isn’t just rework, it’s losing the thread entirely.

A Winter 2025 NEJ technical paper argues that early-stage ship design can modernize by aligning traditional naval architecture workflows with systems engineering—and, ultimately, model-based systems engineering (MBSE). The authors walk through two dominant approaches: the classic point-based “design spiral,” which commits to a baseline early and iterates toward convergence, and set-based design, which explores ranges of solutions and narrows the space as unknowns collapse.

Both approaches can break down under today’s complexity, especially as interfaces multiply and requirements management becomes a full-time fight. The paper proposes a “meet-in-the-middle” method: combine bottom-up ship design expertise with top-down requirements rigor so every function and subsystem remains traceable back to a user need—no requirement left behind.

An MBSE digital model is the end state of that confluence: a connected, authoritative source of truth for requirements traceability, architecture views, analyses, and verification/validation. Instead of chasing inconsistencies across documents, teams define once, reuse across disciplines, assess change impacts quickly, and measure design progress with real metrics—not just document completion.

If you care about delivering capability faster with fewer surprises—and avoiding the kinds of early disconnects that haunt programs later—this paper is worth a close read.

Read the Winter 2025 NEJ issue / get access to the paper

ASNE members receive NEJ access as a core benefit. If you’re working ship defense, combat systems integration, autonomy, power/cooling, or next-gen survivability, this is the kind of analysis NEJ exists to publish.