In the paper by G. Barbieri et al. (Mechatronics (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics. 2013.12.004), a design methodology, based on the W life cycle process model, is presented and SysML is proposed as a tool to support the whole development process. In this letter, we discuss the presented approach, we point out technical errors and raise additional issues that might help in making the proposed approach applicable.