This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 2000). Derek Hatley and Imtiaz Pirbhai—authors of Strategies for Real-Time System Specification—join with influential consultant Peter Hruschka to present a much anticipated update to their widely implemented Hatley/Pirbhai methods. Process for System Architecture and Requirements Engineering introduces a new approach that is particularly useful for multidisciplinary system development: It applies equally well to all technologies and thereby provides a common language for developers in widely differing disciplines. The Hatley-Pirbhai-Hruschka approach (H/H/P) has another important feature: the coexistence of the requirements and architecture methods and of the corresponding models they produce. These two models are kept separate, but the approach fully records their ongoing and changing interrelationships. This feature is missing from virtually all other system and software development methods and from CASE tools that only automate the requirements model. System managers, system architects, system engineers, and managers and engineers in all of the diverse engineering technologies will benefit from this comprehensive, pragmatic text. In addition to its models of requirements and architecture and of the development process itself, the book uses in-depth case studies of a hospital monitoring system and of a multidisciplinary groundwater analysis system to illustrate the principles. Compatibility Between the H/H/P Methods and the UML: The Hatley/Pirbhai architecture and requirements methods—described in Strategies for Real-Time System Specification—have been widely used for almost two decades in system and software development. Now known as the Hatley/Hruschka/Pirbhai (H/H/P) methods, they have always been compatible with object-oriented software techniques, such as the UML, by defining architectural elements as classes, objects, messages, inheritance relationships, and so on. In Process for System Architecture and Requirements Engineering, that compatibility is made more specific through the addition of message diagrams, inheritance diagrams, and new notations that go with them. In addition, state charts, while never excluded, are now specifically included as a representation of sequential machines. These additions make definition of the system/software boundary even more straightforward, while retaining the clear separation of requirements and design at the system levels that is a hallmark of the H/H/P methods—not shared by most OO techniques. Once the transition to software is made, the developer is free to continue using the H/H/P methods, or to use the UML or any other software-specific technique.

Table of Contents:
Foreword     xvii Preface    xix Figures and Tables        xv Part I:  Concepts          1 Chapter 1:   Introduction          3 1.1 Purpose and Scope  3 1.2 The System Development Process  4 1.3 Underlying Principles  4 1.2 What's in a Name?  5 1.3 Audience for and Structure of the Book  6 1.4 A Participative Case Study on the Web  7 1.5 A Caveat 8   Chapter 2:  What Is a System?         9 2.1 System Characteristics  9 2.2 Views of a System  18 2.3 System Requirements  24 2.4 System Summary  40   Chapter 3:  A Framework for Modeling Systems         41 3.1 A Model Framework  41 3.2 Models in General  41 3.3 Exploiting System Hierarchies  45 3.4 Exploiting the What/How Classification  49 3.5 Exploiting the Information/Material/Energy Classification 55 3.6 Layered Models: The Truth at Last! 60 3.7 Model Framework Summary 70   Chapter 4:  System Development Models        72 4.1 Overview 72 4.2 Architecture Model 74 4.3 Requirements Model 112 4.4 Requirements Dictionary 162 4.5 Requirements/Architecture Relationships 170 4.6 A Note on Object Orientation 178 4.7 System Models Summary and Further Reading 180   Chapter 5:  The System Development Process         181  5.1 Process, Methods, and Tools 181 5.2 The Nature of the Development Process 183 5.3 The Process and the Methods 190 5.4 Roles of the System Architect and System Engineer 200 5.5 System Development Process Summary 204   Chapter 6:  Applying the Models to Development         205 6.1 Overview 205 6.2 Understanding the Generic Development Structure 206 6.3 Example: A Patient-Monitoring System 209 6.4 Configuring Software and Computer Hardware 236 6.5 Modeling the Numerous Hardware Technologies 244 6.6 Computer Hardware Layers 251 6.7 Software Layers 253 6.8 Summaries 273   Chapter 7:  System Development Overview Using a Meta-Model         275 7.1 Introduction 275 7.2 A Meta-Model for Development Projects 276 7.3 An Essential Model of the Development Process 277 7.4 The Enhanced Development Model 281 7.5 The Development Architecture Context 284 7.6 Development Process Architecture 288 7.7 Development Process Task Allocation 291 7.8 Variations on the Architecture Template   291   Part II:  Case Study: Groundwater Analysis System         297 Chapter 8:  Initial Problem Statement         299 8.1 Overview 299 8.2 Required Capabilities 300 8.3 Required Performance 301 8.4 Required Constraints 301   Chapter 9:  Modeling the Known Pieces         304 9.1 Overview 304 9.2 The Requirements Context 304 9.3 The System Timing Specification 305 9.4 The Entity Model 307 9.5 The Existing Sampling Module 311   Chapter 10:  Building Upon the Known Pieces         316 10.1 Top-Level Essential Model 316 10.2 Enhancing the Essential Model 331 10.3 Architecture Context 341 10.4 Building Up from the Existing Sampling Module 343 10.5 What Do We Have, and What Is Missing? 346   Chapter 11:   Filling in the Blanks         348 11.1 Introduction 348 11.2 Architecture Modules 348 11.3 Allocating the Enhanced Requirements Model 349 11.4 Enhancing the Allocated Models 357 11.5 Adding the Architecture Flows and Interconnects 362 11.6 Flow-to-Interconnect Allocations 362 11.7 Merging the Top-Down and Bottom-Up Pieces 364   Chapter 12:  Completing the Models         375 12.1 Introduction 375 12.2 Accuracy Allocation 375 12.3 Timing Allocation–Concurrent Architecture Modules 376 12.4 Architecture Module Specifications 378 12.5 Architecture Interconnect Specifications 382 12.6 Requirements and Architecture Dictionaries 383   Chapter 13:   Groundwater Analysis System Summary         387 13.1 Overview 387 Appendix:  Changes, Improvements, and Misconceptions Since the Methods' Introduction         389 A. 1   A Learning Experience 389 A. 2   Changes and Improvements  390 A. 3   Misconceptions about the Methods 397   Glossary         401 Bibliography           419 Index         425