Homework Assignment 1

You can work on the homework in groups of two people.

Due : 6.30pm, October 7, 1999.


Problem 1

One cornerstone of systems engineering is that real engineering systems are developed by teams of people, and the modeling of these systems must be flexible enough to address the individual concerns of each team member.

For one of the following systems:

  1. An airport;
  2. A building;
  3. A transportation (or communications) network;
  4. A clinical laboratory;

develop a family of high-level object diagrams showing the entities and relationship among entities, as seen by two or more parties in a development team. For each diagram clearly indicate the viewpoint, the entities of interest, and the structural relationship among these entities (We will add information on system behavior and lower-level object attributes and operations later in the course.)

Appropriate viewpoints might include data/information, functional, operator/user, communications, administration, security, and so forth. In the case of a building, engineering and architectural viewpoints would be appropriate.

Use of any well-established object diagramming notation (e.g., OMT, UML) is acceptable.

Note. This assignment is tricky and will require some thinking, but I'm sure there will be many good solutions. My suggestion is that you write a summary of your key ideas -- let's say no more than 6-8 pages, including diagrams.

What to hand in

You can hand in a paper solution or develop a web page. The latter will help you later in the semester.


Developed in September 1999 by Mark Austin
Copyright © 1999, Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland