Designing Complex Systems

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Chapter 3

The Design Methodology

3.1 Outline

Design in the functional domain starts with a set of stakeholder requirements and

ends with a set of interacting functional elements, such that

1. the collective behavior of the elements satisfies the requirements,

2. the choice of elements allows an efficient transition into the physical domain

(physical realizability), and

3. the most cost-effective (physical) solution is among the set of solutions cor-

responding to the set of elements.

From this rough description we can discern a number of the characteristics

of the design process and some important issues that must arise in developing a

methodolo ...