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

8.6 Summary

In this chapter, we followed the development of an architecture from a simple concept through to Level 1 and then recursively to Level 2. The main point is that there is a process to go from ­Level N to Level N+1, which can be applied in expanding the concept to Level 1, and equally well in expanding Level 1 to Level 2. Because the really important information about the ­relationships among the Level 1 entities are hidden at Level 2, we must probe down two levels, identify the relationships of interest, and then cluster at Level 1.

We have come to the end of Part 2 of the text, in which we described the entire process of analysis of an architecture: defining the form and structure (Chapter 4); the functional architecture of processes ...