A method for analyzing architectural drivers when engineering a system architecture

Abstract

A very important task in systems architecting is to understand the needs of the system and identify which ones have architectural ramifications, i.e., architectural drivers. The understanding of architectural drivers enables the later engineering tasks including evaluation of architectural alternatives. Systems engineering guidelines provide models and advice for what information entities to consider, but only limited proposals of how to proceed. In this paper, we device and present a method to perform analysis of architectural drivers and we apply it to an industrial case of developing a hybrid electric drive system for heavy automotive applications. We present data on what practitioners expect from such a method, we present the method and rationale, and preliminary results from applying the method to the case. We note that the process and information model are fairly general and could be considered useful for any developer of a complex system. We believe the proposed method closes some of the gap between the general models described in the system engineering guidelines and an industrially applicable method.