SYST 210

System Design 

Kathryn Blackmond Laskey
Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research
George Mason University
Functional Architecture Lab and Homework Assignment 7
Due October 27, 2020

Reading assignment: Chapter 7

This assignment will be started in the functional architecture lab on October 20 and completed as homework.  Your homework assignment is to finish what you did not complete in class. You will turn in a system description document with the contents described below.   You may work with others, but you must hand in your own report, and you must include the names of anyone with whom you worked.  

This assignment uses the UChekIt case study from the requirements and operational concepts labs.  Use the vision statement, operational scenarios, external systems diagram and ICOM table provided to you for the exercise.  You will be building on Assignments 4 and 5.  A CORE model is provided to use as a starting point.  You may also use the CORE model you developed for Assignments 4 and 5.

  1. Open your starting CORE model (the one downloaded from Blackboard or the one you did for Assignment 5). This should have functions, items and requirements as defined for Assignments 4 and 5. Go to the Model Assistant and make sure "Auto-create root functions", "Auto-allocate on Decomposition", and "Auto-allocate on Allocation" are unchecked. This will keep CORE from automatically creating entities and relations we don't want.
  2. Develop a hierarchical decomposition of the main function F.0, Provide Self-Checkout Services.  You can use the functions we brainstormed in class as a starting point. You will need to form logical groupings for a functional decomposition.
  3. Once you have developed the function hierarchy, add the functions to your CORE database.  Use the decomposes / decomposed by relations in CORE to specify the hierarchy.  At least one of your functions has to be decomposed at least 2 levels (Main function / 1st level sub function / 2nd level subfunction.)    Make sure your functions are numbered hierarchically. When you do this, it will add tunnels to your external systems diagram. We will fix most of the tunnels in the next step.
  4. Connect the inputs, controls and outputs (ICOs) from your external systems diagram to the appropriate sub-functions in your decomposition.  This should remove the ICO tunnels from your external systems diagram. Connecting ICOs to the sub-functions will add tunnels to any functions you decomposed. Fix this by connecting them to their appropriate sub-functions.  You may want to decompose some items, connecting the sub-items to different sub-functions. When you finish this step, you will have no tunnels in the inputs, controls and outputs of any of your IDEF0 diagrams, down to the bottom level.  Do not worry about tunnels in the mechanisms. These will be fixed when you develop the physical and allocated architectures. We will do this in a future lab.
  5. You will need to add ICOs to make sure your functions operate properly. That is, functions must have the needed inputs to produce their required outputs.  Enter any new ICOs you define as items into CORE and connect them to your functions. You may decompose items as appropriate.  As you do parts c. and d., you may decide that additional items need to be added to the external systems diagram in order for the operational scenarios to be fulfilled. If so, go ahead and add these items.
  6. Make a function hierarchy diagram with the UChekIt main function at the root and showing your functional decomposition. Write a paragraph describing the decomposition.
  7. Develop a data model:
  8. Do requirements tracing:
  9. Make a professional report. Make sure the names of all collaborators and "Assignment 7" appear on the cover page and at the top of all pages.  Your report should include the following elements:
Your goal is to develop a functional architecture that addresses your requirements and can perform the operational scenarios and to create a professional functional architecture description document.  Part of your grade will be professionalism and following instructions.


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