Engineering Intelligent Systems

7Picturing Systems with Model Based Systems Engineering

Writing is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.

(Cartoonist Richard Guindon)

Mathematics is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your writing is… Formal mathematics is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your mathematics is.

(Leslie Lamport (inventor of LaTex))

Use Cases are nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your requirements are.

(The Author)

7.1 How Humans Build Things

Human beings have been building things for thousands of years. In the beginning, simple objects were made from simple materials. A stone was sharpened on another stone and then used for cutting wood. Pieces of wood were tied together to form shelters and furniture. A sword was forged from a single piece of metal. For simple items, the purpose, intended use, design, and implementation all arose together in the mind of the creator. An ox cart is more complicated. There are several parts, and they must fit together for it to work correctly, but again, the usage and the design are born as twins of the same mother. Usage and design are always there in any conception of a needed product or system, no matter how simple or complex.

Sometimes, the usage is simple, and the design is complicated. When mechanical clocks were first invented in the thirteenth century, their usage was simple and straightforward – display the time – while the design required much effort to develop. Since then, many different designs ...