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5.2.1 How Does A System Engineer Really Identify Interface Needs?
Author(s) -
Grady Jeffrey O.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2014.tb03158.x
Subject(s) - interface (matter) , process (computing) , computer science , work (physics) , product (mathematics) , human–computer interaction , risk analysis (engineering) , engineering , mathematics , mechanical engineering , programming language , geometry , bubble , maximum bubble pressure method , medicine , parallel computing
The author has not observed in the literature a description of an organized systematic method for identifying a need for an interface during system development on a program. Most system engineers tend to do this using experience as the early product concept design work matures and they think of it as an obvious activity. The author reached this conclusion by conducting a survey of very experienced system engineers over a period of three INCOSE IS in past years. This paper offers an alternative that is organized with clear instructions on how to accomplish the work. One could argue that it could require considerable time to accomplish in an exhaustive fashion because it involves a possibly large number of evaluations of pairs of trios of information. So, there is an up side that the method does exhaustively evaluate all possible interface needs but the method also has a down side that may involve an increase in cost during the learning curve and even thereafter. One can choose to apply the intuitive process often applied today, switch to the systematic method described in this paper, or selectively apply the systematic method where new technologies and concepts are involved.