Science_Project - Use of Operational Entity vs Operational Actors

Hello,
I’m a complete newbie to the MBSE world.

I have taken on the task of modeling a system that will ultimately lead to creating a Device that feeds nutrients to plants autonomously.

My 1st of many questions are -

Do I represent both the device and plants as operational entities?

or the device as an operational entity and the plant as an operational actor?

During the operational analysis you are trying to model the problem domain, i.e. what is the problem to be solved. You should therefore concentrate on what operational capabilities are required. In your example I would have thought this would be something to do with producing healthy plants and maybe minimizing plant mortality.

I would suggest the plants themselves are operational entities and there must be some sort of horticulturist (human actor) that should be represented. The “device” however should not be modelled at all during the OA. The human engineering solution to the problem should be discovered during the system analysis (SA) where the system (your perspective device) will doubtless take on some of the functions that the human would traditionally perform.

Hi woodske, Many thanks for your very quick response.

So I have modelled both the Horticulturist and Plants as an Operational Actor and Operational Entity respectively.

It makes sense as I am now able to link (involve) the two under the Operational Capability (Feed Nutrients to Plants)

Interesting… Watch this Space. Lots to think about, The Nutrients, Environment, Scenarios, Scenarios, Scenarios