The Federated Digital Thread

For fifteen years, the digital thread has been the ambition of digital engineering: connected requirements, live traceability across systems, software and physical design; virtual twins and digitized in-life management, a configuration record that resolves itself across PLM, ALM, MBSE, simulation, manufacturing, and in-life support.

The thread that was promised is not the one that exists. In most large engineering organizations, despite serious investment and competent execution, the thread is still discontinuous. This white paper argues that the gap is structural, not behavioral.