Systems Design

What this course is about

This course provides an appreciation of the design process within the systems engineering lifecycle. The module covers the concepts and challenges of activities associated with requirements, functional analysis and architectural design. It provides techniques to aid decision making processes and looks at the creative as well as systematic elements of design.

At the end of this module, the student will be able to:

• Understand the importance of establishing good requirements at the earliest point in the systems development
• Take account of the key points to consider when implementing a requirements management process
• Apply techniques for the elicitation of requirements
• Understand how to choose appropriate modelling and analysis techniques to support the requirements engineering process
• Understand the key principles of good design
• Use functional decomposition and partitioning to progress to subsystem development
• Appreciate the key points in choosing an appropriate design methodology
• Apply the techniques of abstraction and architectural frameworks to create a set of system viewpoints
• Apply a variety of principles and techniques to support decisions between design choices

Teaching mode

The module is taught over a 5 day teaching block for all MSc programmes and short course attendees on the London campus. It runs once a year.

Accreditation

This module is 15 credits. It is an optional module on both MSc Systems Engineering Management and MSc Management of Complex Projects.

Module Context

The need for systems engineering arose with the increase in complexity of systems and projects. When speaking in this context, complexity incorporates not only engineering systems, but also the logical human organization of data. At the same time, a system can become more complex due to an increase in size as well as with an increase in the amount of data, variables, or the number of specialisations that are involved in the design.

One of the most important stages in system development is that of Design. Typically 80% of the final system cost is committed in the first 20% of the engineering activity, i.e. during design.

Given the complexity of the task a series of methodologies, tools and techniques are used in order to manage the complexity and achieve the desired goals.

Although the process of design may be considered 'creative', many analytical processes also take place. In fact, many designers often make use of the various design methodologies in their creative process.

Complex Systems Design is necessarily a multidisciplinary activity and requires tailoring to adapt to the needs of the particular system complexity and organization.