Successful deployment of a Model-Based Design process is dependent on the education of the development group and then, in turn, the final engineers.  The training requirements for the deployment group and the engineers have some overlap, however, by their nature, the development group will have higher level requirements

Core and supporting areas for training

Adopting Model-Based Design requires learning new skills and adapting existing skills to a new environment.

There are 4 core areas for training an additional 3 supporting areas

Core

1. Model and system architecture: The model and system architecture provides guidelines for model construction and system integration.
2. Data management:  Data management enables data driven development workflows and allows for design of experiments within the MBD context
3. Requirements workflow: Software development processes should begin with well-written requirements documents.  Model-Based Design simplifies the traceability of requirements from creation to final deployment.
4. Verification and validation: The verification and validation processes are greatly accelerated in the Model-Based Design environment due to the simplification of early simulation of the software artifacts.

Supporting

1. Version control processes: Use of version control software continues from the traditional software development processes.  The key lays with the artifacts under management.
2. Documentation processes: Documentation covers both the creation of training material and the generation of tracking and V&V documentation.
3. Bug tracking software: Like version control processes bug tracking software continues the use from traditional software development processes.

Methods of training

When adopting Model-Based Desing training consists of both formal training and informal training.  The first line of training is tool specific training, e.g. how to use individual tools.  This provides the grounding on their use.

Once a baseline understanding of the tools has been acquired training on the company specific workflow needs to take place.  For the development team, this training takes place either through reading papers on best practices for Model-Based Design adoption or hiring external resources.

Once the development team has defined the MBD workflow they should document the process and provide training to other members of the engineering team.

Final thoughts

Resources invested in training pay a quick return on investment enabling engineers and software developers to speak using the same language and concepts.  The importance of developing custom training and workflows from the training cannot be stressed enough. And while 90% of Model-Based Design workflows will be common between companies the long-term success of any project is dependent on developing training that directly addresses the unique challenges of your organization.