Systems Engineering Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition

3STRUCTURE OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

3.1 SYSTEM BUILDING BLOCKS AND INTERFACES

The need for a systems engineer to attain a broad knowledge of the several interacting disciplines involved in the development of a complex system raises the question of how deep that understanding needs to be. Clearly, it cannot be as deep as the knowledge possessed by the specialists in these areas. Yet it must be sufficient to recognize such factors as program risks, technological performance limits, and interfacing requirements, and to make trade-off analyses among design alternatives.

Obviously, the answers depend on specific cases. However, it is possible to provide an important insight by examining the structural hierarchy of modern systems. Such an examination reveals the existence of identifiable types of the building blocks that make up the large majority of systems and represent the lower working level of technical understanding that the systems engineer must have in order to do the job. This is the level at which technical trade-offs affecting system capabilities must be worked out and at which interface conflicts must be resolved in order to achieve a balanced design across the entire system. The nature of these building blocks in their context as fundamental system elements and their interfaces and interactions are discussed in the ensuing sections.

3.2 HIERARCHY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

In order to understand the scope of systems engineering and what a systems engineer must learn to carry out ...