It all starts here
Digital engineering is not a one-size-fits-all solution. To be truly effective, it must be carefully tailored to the specific needs, maturity level, and goals of your organization.
In this initial step, we explore the different stages or levels of digital engineering maturity. These stages serve as a roadmap, helping you understand where your organization currently stands and what the next steps might look like on the path to a fully integrated digital engineering environment.
We begin at the “zero stage”—a baseline that reflects an ad-hoc, often chaotic development state. At this level, digitalization may exist in fragmented forms, such as the use of office documents, spreadsheets, or shared folders. However, these tools are not systematically managed or integrated into a cohesive development process. Collaboration is limited, and processes are typically undocumented or inconsistently applied.
...and continues here
From there, each subsequent stage introduces greater levels of structure, consistency, and connectivity, by the use of systems engineering (SE) principles. As you progress, the organization gradually transitions from basic digital practices to more advanced capabilities such as model based systems engineering (MBSE), model-based development (MBD), and end to-end lifecycle management.
Each stage also enhances the ability to collaborate at scale, enabling distributed teams, domain integration, and more efficient workflows across the entire product lifecycle. The ultimate goal is to create a seamless and intelligent digital ecosystem—a true digital engineering platform that supports innovation, traceability, and continuous improvement.
The maturity stage you choose will determine which topics and methods become relevant, and how deeply they should be implemented. Depending on your selected stage, you may emphasize systems engineering principles, adopt modeling standards, or focus on integrating tools and processes across departments.
Let’s now explore each stage in detail and select the one that best fits your current situation and future vision.
a use case
what do you get?
- Insights into various digital engineering stages
- Your selected stage
- Potential of using SE, MBSE, and PLM
- Clear base for next steps