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

6.6 Summary

In Chapters 4, 5, and 6 we discussed the core ideas of system architecture: form, function, how function is allocated to form, and how function emerges as form is assembled. Although form and function are system attributes, the allocation we call architecture is not a system attribute, but a mapping between the two.

The structure of the form is quite important to consider when trying to understand emergence. There are aspects of structure that enable emergence, and aspects of form that inform the performance associated with the emergent function.

Primary and secondary value emerge along the value pathway, but non-idealities often appear as a consequence of the need to manage the operands and deal with uncertainties. The value pathway ...