Design and Development of Aircraft Systems, 3rd Edition

4Design Drivers

4.1 Introduction

Chapter 3 introduced the concept of design drivers, or factors that positively and strongly influence the design of a system and therefore must be taken into account. Combinations of these factors may be predominant at different phases of the lifecycle; they change and their influence varies. Not everyone involved in the design at different organisational levels will take the same view of any one factor's importance. Each will have their own personal viewpoint depending upon their particular discipline and their perception of the issue at hand – marketing, engineering, management, financial, contractual, etc. This can lead to organisational stress, differences of priority, and poor communication in the organisation as each group works, unknowingly perhaps, to their own agenda to the detriment of the whole.

A holistic systems approach (or looking at the big picture) will aim to make the design drivers openly visible to all participants, ensuring that they are all aware of the ownership and stakeholder issues relating to any factor, and to advise of altering priorities or balances and the need for the change in the ‘corporate’ approach. It is worth remembering that you cannot hope to understand the whole by studying a part, you need to look at the big picture.

Design drivers arise in the environment of the system as perceived by different organisational levels. The system may be considered to have a series of overlapping environments containing ...