Supporting Systems Analysis and Design Through Fisheye Views

Demonstrating the usefulness of integrating context-based views into the systems analysis and design process.

The development of information systems is no longer limited to a few locations throughout the world. They are developed in countries whose business environment and culture are very different. Culture, we suggest, is therefore an important variable in the development process and may introduce its own set of problems, the consequences of which may range from project failure to delayed delivery of working systems. But culture’s influence may be indirect, difficult to isolate, and difficult to measure. For these reasons, perhaps, there has been no research that directly addresses culture’s role in the systems analysis and design process. This paper is an attempt to fill that void. It identifies the stages in the systems analysis and design process likely to be influenced by culture and the pattern which these influences are likely to take. The benefit of such a framework is that it draws attention to the issue of culture at the beginning of the development cycle and may reduce the chances of failure or costly delays.

An examination of designer and user perceptions of JAD and the traditional IS design methodology

The study proposes a combination of the function points model for software estimation with the ADISSA methodology for systems analysis and design. This combined approach, which is supported by a software tool, enables one to estimate various software metrics, such as size, effort, and duration, in the early stages of systems development, by basing them on the products of a thorough system analysis and design process.

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This dissertation studies the process of operations systems design within the context of the manufacturing organization. Using the DRAMA (Design Routine for Adopting Modular Assembly) model as developed by a team from the IDOM Research Unit at Aston University as a starting point, the research employed empirically based fieldwork and a survey to investigate the process of production systems design and implementation within four UK manufacturing industries: electronics assembly, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and carpet manufacturing. The intention was to validate the basic DRAMA model as a framework for research enquiry within the electronics industry, where the initial IDOM work was conducted, and then to test its generic applicability, further developing the model where appropriate, within the other industries selected. The thesis contains a review of production systems design theory and practice prior to presenting thirteen industrial case studies of production systems design from the four industry sectors. The results and analysis of the postal survey into production systems design are then presented. The strategic decisions of manufacturing and their relationship to production systems design, and the detailed process of production systems design and operation are then discussed. These analyses are used to develop the generic model of production systems design entitled DRAMA II (Decision Rules for Analysing Manufacturing Activities). The model contains three main constituent parts: the basic DRAMA model, the extended DRAMA II model showing the imperatives and relationships within the design process, and a benchmark generic approach for the design and analysis of each component in the design process. DRAMA II is primarily intended for use by researchers as an analytical framework of enquiry, but is also seen as having application for manufacturing practitioners.

There is considerable interest within office automation for the creation of methodologies to describe the needs of offices and build tools to support those needs. Most of the analysis, design, and implementation methodologies, however, involve only a single type of support — the creation of tools to automate procedures found in the office. Although the procedures to be supported are generally less well structured than the procedures supported by classic data processing, the focus is still on procedures. These procedurally-oriented methodologies are likely to work extremely well in only one kind of office, which the author and Sprague have called the Type I department [10]. There is another general category of offices, Type II, that handles the firm's nonroutine information processing chores. Examples are the offices of top executives, the offices of line managers, legal departments, and engineering departments. In these offices, procedures exist, but immediately jumping from functional analysis and goals to the analysis of procedures is not likely to be helpful. First, the procedures in these offices are usually few, so their automation is not likely to bring extensive gains. Second, the strategies that Type II offices do need are likely to be professionally complex and nonprocedural. To strong a procedural focus in a methodology could blind analysts to the real needs of the office. Two studies were conducted in an attempt to test a broader analysis methodology that the author had earlier proposed to study Type II offices as well as Type I offices. While it was concluded that there were differences in Type I and Type II office support, it was found that people in both kinds of offices tended to pick mundane applications. A major goal for the future should be to find ways to help office principals articulate more visionary goals that can be made possible because of computer support. Type II offices present a major problem to designers of office methodologies. The traditional procedural analysis skills taught in systems analysis and office analysis methodologies are not likely to be central to the needs of the office. The strategies that must be designed and supported, rather, are likely to depend very heavily on the professional content of the work being done in that office. It is possible that the office analyst in the future will be less a driving force in the design of support systems than a catalyst to help users define their own needs — just as designers of decision support systems are increasily helping managers define their own data needs [13]. Critical success factors and external contribution analysis are likely to be only preludes to comprehensive methodologies to help office principals define their goals and strategies.

Various diagrams have been used heavily in systems analysis and design without proper verification of their usability. However, different diagrammatic representations of the same information may vary in the computational efficiency of working with these diagrams. The objective of this research was to explore the effects of diagrammatic representations on the task of integrating multiple diagrams. The domain of systems analysis and design was used to generate examples and test the theory. A cognitive model of diagram integration was proposed, and an experimental study was conducted, both to explore the effects of representa-tional features of diagrams on the cognitive process of diagram integration. Results of the experiment show that the representational features of the diagrams acted as the criteria for selecting among various methods for analyzing and designing the integrated diagram. In addition, the difference in the selected methods resulted in different task performances in terms of analysis and design errors. This article concludes with the implications of the results for the development of cognitively compelling diagrams.

Background. Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness requiring self-management skills and information about the illness, its treatment, and where to get help with daily routines. Despite the systematic development of computer-based approaches in mental health, less systematic development of such methods can be found for patients with schizophrenia or psychosis.Objective. The aim is to describe the design and development process of patient-centered computer-based support system (Mieli.Net portal) for patients with schizophrenia spectrum psychoses.Methods. The process with a mixed methods approach includes four phases: analysis of users' needs, development of key patient information areas, development of a software prototype and to pilot the portal, and user evaluation by health care staff.Results. The computer-based patient support system is a promising health-promoting service to schizophrenic patients. It is important, that users of technology are involved in the development process, which will ensure that sites are user-friendly, information can be personalized, and mental patients' voices are heard in the development of patient education.Conclusions. The effectiveness needs to be evaluated carefully in future clinical trials. This will offer valuable information for policymakers, organizations and health care practitioners about the usability of web-based patient education in the area of mental health care.

Technical system design processes are typically based on systems engineering vee models where designers move between functional and physical domains as they develop detailed designs of the overall system and its sub-systems and component parts. The movements between the functional and physical domains are informed by the core activities of any design process: synthesis, description, analysis and simulation, and decision-making. However, delivering socio-technical systems design mindsets, such as those needed to design multi-team systems, requires a new branch of systems science that integrates human behavior into system behavior. Design processes built on such a science would allow system designers to compare alternative solutions in terms of their anticipated performance and consider different options with respect to functions carried out by humans and machines. In this chapter we use a systems design process vee model and apply it to a case study that involves the design of a multi-team customer service system. Both the application of the vee model (i.e., the proposed design process) and the results of its application (i.e., the multi-team customer service system) can be regarded as socio-technical systems and are used to illustrate and elaborate on Clegg’s (Appl Ergon 31(5):463–477, 2000) socio-technical principles for system design. On this basis, we provide a practical framework for designing socio-technical systems and identify requirements for developing future methods and tools to support this process.

ICAS-PAT: A software for design, analysis and validation of PAT systems

This book will help readers gain a solid understanding of non-functional requirements inherent in systems design endeavors. It contains essential information for those who design, use, and maintain complex engineered systems, including experienced designers, teachers of design, system stakeholders, and practicing engineers. Coverage approaches non-functional requirements in a novel way by presenting a framework of four systems concerns into which the 27 major non-functional requirements fall: sustainment, design, adaptation, and viability. Within this model, the text proceeds to define each non-functional requirement, to specify how each is treated as an element of the system design process, and to develop an associated metric for their evaluation. Systems are designed to meet specific functional needs. Because non-functional requirements are not directly related to tasks that satisfy these proposed needs, designers and stakeholders often fail to recognize the importance of such attributes as availability, survivability, and robustness. This book gives readers the tools and knowledge they need to both recognize the importance of these non-functional requirements and incorporate them in the design process

Modeling and simulation have become an important aspect of the design and development process of aircraft systems. During the design of high lift actuation systems for example, the dynamic loads in the transmission are estimated by simulation. Nevertheless huge development efforts and financial resources are still invested in physical testing. These integration and testing phases take place at a late stage in the design process. Therefore, identified malfunctions and development errors lead to undesired iterations and thus to high costs as well as to an increased development time. This issue is emphasized as system complexity is rising continuously in conjunction with an increase in the number of interconnections and functionality. Hence, early and continuous virtual testing activities on the overall system level become increasingly important. In order to establish such a process, this paper analyzes the effects of modeling depth and parameter uncertainties on the overall system behavior considering nominal operation as well as failure cases. It identifies which test cases can be performed in which development phase depending on the information required. The modeling and simulation is implemented in the multiphysics and object-oriented simulation environment Matlab/Simulink/Simscape using an example of a multifunctional high lift actuation system.

The paper examined the problem of modeling and design of software computer systems. The article briefly describes the content aspects of the various stages of the implementation of software complexes and systems. The methodology of research and analysis of systems, which uses the method of computer simulation modeling, is given. The aim of the work is to create a new universal approach to the design and implementation of software systems of various levels of complexity. During the study, the following general scientific methods were used: system analysis, synthesis, formalization, modeling, decomposition, structuring, description, comparison. The materials used in the study were: computers and software development tools. As a result of the study proposed a universal agent-module approach to the design and implementation of software systems based on simulation agent-based modeling. The study presents the processes of modeling and designing software systems, their stages, and the possibility of their integration within the described approach. Examples of formal model and structure of the software system under design based on the agent-module approach are presented. The proposed approach can be used in the process of software development at the initial stages related to modeling and designing of software systems. Integration of modeling and design stages in the proposed approach will significantly reduce software development time and simplify the design process by making it clearer and more formalized. Materials of the article are of scientific and practical value for a wide range of specialists interested in system analysis, modeling, design and implementation of software systems.

The extended evolution of systems analysis has created a challenging problem for the modern student, scholar, teacher, and practitioner: an overabundant, highly specialized body of literature that is difficult to grasp in terms of a generalized framework and methodology. The need for a comprehensive synthesis of systems analysis knowledge is apparent, since modern systems analysts apply their skills in a complex arena: policy analysis of large-scale societal systems. The purpose of the paper is to: 1) propose a generalized system analysis framework that is composed of a) steps in the systems analysis process, b) areas of application and problem categories, and c) analytical techniques for accomplishing the steps; 2) describe, in detail, a methodology of fundamental tasks in the systems analysis process; and 3) briefly describe a few techniques that have particular relevance in the proposed systems analysis methodology.