System Architecture: Strategy and Product Development for Complex Systems, First Edition

Chapter 6 System Architecture

6.1 Introduction

We are now poised to understand the synthesis of form and function known as architecture. Form, a system attribute consisting of elements and structure, was developed in Chapter 4. Function, a system attribute consisting of entities of function and interactions through operands, collectively forming the functional architecture, was discussed in Chapter 5. Now we will explore system architecture, the combination of form and function.

Up to this point, we have agreed that system architecture is an abstract description of the entities of a system and the relationships between those entities. We will now adopt the more descriptive definition given in Box 6.1. The definition includes five key terms. ...