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

Chapter 13 Decomposition as a Tool for Managing Complexity

13.1 Introduction

Once the concept has been selected and the architect begins to define the full function-to-form mapping, the scope and information content of the development project can grow exponentially. Resources for each subsystem are added to the project during the design phase, marketing can begin shaping the message for the product, manufacturing begins to plan in earnest, and so on. In Section 3.2 we introduced complexity as an measure of a system, but now we focus on how to manage complexity.

We will argue that the most important task in this phase is the architect’s management of complexity. Development programs that appear complicated are very difficult to conduct systems ...