COExperience 2023 in Miami featured many top-tier speakers and presenters who taught on the latest product developments and solutions to help businesses work more effectively. One speaker was Chris Garrett, Senior Leader for Systems Engineering, US Air Force (USAF). We had the opportunity to speak with Garrett, and he gave us a recap of his presentation and shared with us about the positive time he had at COExperience. “My experience at COE was fantastic,” Garrett says, “The speakers were exceptional. Senior Dassault leaders provided excellent insight into Dassault’s vision and progress. Speakers like Steve Levine provided compelling insights into how the new digital tools are changing our world with his example of modeling the human. Steve showed us that having reference architectures of systems like the human heart can enable an entire community to accelerate and collaborate to solve problems which seemed impossible yesterday. The side sessions were organized well and provided superb forums for Q&A on relevant topics for today’s digital challenges.”

While Garrett had many positive things to say about his fellow presenters, his own presentation, “An MBSE Acquisition System” was also very successful. As a first-time speaker at COE, Garrett was excited to have the opportunity to share his expertise with attendees. “I had not spoken at COE before. Jim Jordan asked me to speak on the status of USAF digital transformation, which was something I was eager to do. COE was a perfect place since the USAF uses a lot of Dassault tools.”

Having spent more than 27 years in the Air Force working in the areas of electronic warfare, Garrett had a wealth of knowledge and first-hand experience to share with his audience. During his presentation, he gave insight about the future of USAF tools. “My presentation was focused on the direction the USAF was headed with digital transformation. My main points were:

1. The USAF needs to move to modeling our weapon systems in Systems Modeling Language (SysML)
2. It needs to integrate our SysML models with our Product Lifecycle Mgt capability
3. It needs to develop reference architectures in SysML that allows the community to collaborate
4. It needs to develop an integrated digital environment which utilizes data-as-a-service to support whatever analyses (cost, operations, logistics, cyber, physics) is required

“I wanted the audience to walk away with the understanding that the USAF has a vision for digital transformation and that we are taking steps to get there,” Garrett says. “My main highlights showed that once a reference model is developed, whether it is a heart or an airplane, the community benefits greatly because it enables collaboration. Also, to produce capability fast means you must automate as much of your process as possible. In order to automate, you have to establish the right model and data standards.”

Garrett’s presentation was met with much positive feedback which gave him inspiration on how to strengthen his talks in the future. He also encourages COE members to participate in speaking at events, as it provides the speaker an opportunity to have an impact in this industry. “COE members should present at COE to get their message out to an audience of experts who are the real change agents in the community,” he says. “Plus, by presenting, you will get a multitude of responses from people that will improve your work and open up other opportunities for you.”