Collaborative Artifact, Specification, Context and Resource Access​ (CASCaRA)

Basic idea

Digital Engineering (DE) brings unique collaboration opportunities across companies. Properly implemented DE collaboration is essential as it streamlines certification and product delivery, enables development assurance for critical systems, and reduces development and production costs.

The current challenge is the fragmentation caused by many different tools and data formats involved in cross-domain DE. Companies are often developing custom and proprietary ways of interconnection models internally into the so-called “Digital Thread”. To effectively extend this thread into the supplier and customer base, the industry requires an agreed-upon, holistic, cross-domain Digital Thread interface. This interface must consist of Digital System Models that are (1) semantically connected at the model entity level and (2) enriched with context metadata, independent of the model domain and provenance.

CASCaDE provides the solution for this interface, forming the basis for extending the Digital Thread across the entire supply chain. The project – a collaboration between prostep ivip, GfSE, and VDA – is based on an open, standardized ontology that leverages the findings from DDP, SpecIF, MoSSEC AP243, and LOTAR. 
For some legal reason CASCaDE needed to be renamed in CASCaRA end of 2025.

Priorities & concrete results 2025

The year 2025 was entirely focused on the standardization of the CASCaRA (CASCaDE) model within the OMG, to create the foundation for broad industrial acceptance:

• Standardization Milestones: The OMG Q3 TC Meeting in Leeds (September 2025) established the RDF-based Graph Metamodel. The Initial Submission for official review was successfully prepared for the OMG Q4 TC Meeting in December 2025.
• Technical Foundation: The ontologies of DDP and GfSE SepcIF were successfully merged into a unified CASCaDE Ontology. The model now defines 92 classed and 60 Relationships. 
• Interoperability: Broad compatibility with standards such as LOTAR, MoSSEC, and SPDX was ensured. The transformation logic was extended and now actively supports data exchange from ReqIF, SysML v1, and STEP AP242. 

 

Organizational / technical challenges 2025

The tight schedule of standardization required the postponement of submission deadlines (e.g., Initial submission from August to November 10, 2025). Furthermore, the harmonization of the ontology with existing standards (such as AASX) and the coordination with external committees (such as the INCOSE DEIX WG) represented an ongoing challenge.

What is planned for 2026

2026 is the decisive year for the finalization of the standard within the OMG:

• Conclusion of Standardization: The Revised Submission is expected for the OMG Q1 TC Meeting (March 2026) and the Final Submission for the Q2 TC Meeting 2026 (June 2026).
• Adoption by OMG: The official Adoption by the OMG Board of Directors (BoD) and thus the recognition as an international standard is planned for the end of 2026. 
• Community and Dissemination: The work of the Open Source Community for implementation is actively supported. Furthermore, presentations are planned at the PSI Symposium and the JT/STEP Day.

 

Comment on project coordination

“We achieve all goals which were only made possible through the personal commitment and dedication of many contributors.”

 

Quote from the project chair or project partner with name

Technical Data Packages (TDP) are often no more than file or model bundles, this limits the traceability and visibility of the data as it moves from the OEM to the supplier environment; CASCaRA (CASCaDE) is the evolution; it defines an interconnected data set, or Digital Data Package (DDP) that gets shared between companies, enabling synchronous digital collaboration, minimizing iterations and enabling more efficient development assurance and certification.