A Young Engineer’s View of System Architecture & DesignDefining System ArchitectureArchitecting a Complex SystemA Young Engineer’s View of System Architecture & Design“If you can’t measure something, you can’t design it” By Jehanzeb Noor S.B. MIT ‘04 (mechanical engineering/finance) Work: trading, machine design, ship propeller design Research: closure systems design/attribute conflicts S.M. Mechanical Engineering (automotive industry) ’07Defining System Architecture Characteristics that define the functional, spatial, dynamical, informational, and energy transferal relationships for components to enable system-level designs and analyses Thought: mechanical designs highly coupled and complex Approach: some designs can be broken down to modules. Most functional requirements depend on many components Most MechEs would agree that most problems are hard as many requirements need to be satisfied by few components Good/elegant designs reduce redundancy, achieve robustness to variations, optimize system-level attributes Cross-disciplinary and on-the-field experience is important Process standardization and challenging legacy are big dealsArchitecting a Complex SystemFRs (requirements, attributes etc)Process variablesDPs (design parameters)SYSTEM DESIGNConstraints:- budget & cost- carryover parts- specs & physicsBiases:- organizational - experiential- cultural/politicalSYSTEM ARCHITECTURE• Architecting a system is an iterative and lengthy process • In the world of engineering practice, system architecture entails firefighting or rework (bad design and complexity)•Tools: Design structure matrix, network, datum flow
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