$$ % Define your custom commands here \newcommand{\bmat}[1]{\begin{bmatrix}#1\end{bmatrix}} \newcommand{\E}{\mathbb{E}} \newcommand{\P}{\mathbb{P}} \newcommand{\S}{\mathbb{S}} \newcommand{\R}{\mathbb{R}} \newcommand{\S}{\mathbb{S}} \newcommand{\norm}[2]{\|{#1}\|_{{}_{#2}}} \newcommand{\pd}[2]{\frac{\partial #1}{\partial #2}} \newcommand{\pdd}[2]{\frac{\partial^2 #1}{\partial #2^2}} \newcommand{\vectornorm}[1]{\left|\left|#1\right|\right|} \newcommand{\abs}[1]{\left|{#1}\right|} \newcommand{\mbf}[1]{\mathbf{#1}} \newcommand{\mc}[1]{\mathcal{#1}} \newcommand{\bm}[1]{\boldsymbol{#1}} \newcommand{\nicefrac}[2]{{}^{#1}\!/_{\!#2}} \newcommand{\argmin}{\operatorname*{arg\,min}} \newcommand{\argmax}{\operatorname*{arg\,max}} \newcommand{\dd}{\operatorname{d}\!} $$

Case Studies

Systems Architecture case studies, in-class activities, and homework, grouped by the part of the course they support.

← Systems Architecture

Case studies, in-class activities, and homework for SYSE 2310, grouped by the part of the course they support. Chapter numbers refer to System Architecture by Crawley, Cameron, and Selva and to the current lecture decks.

The two discussion briefs pair a case with five discussion questions and a worked architectural analysis. The activities and homework are handouts: each part opens with a worked example from the textbook to copy.

Complex systems

Hospital emergency department

Complex Systems lectures

Discussion brief: periodic overcrowding in a large emergency department, read through physics, biology, and the social sciences. Covers nonlinear patient flow near capacity, the department as a system adapting to stress, clinician decisions that aggregate into emergent overcrowding, feedback loops, and resilience versus process optimization.

Case study (PDF)

Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Systems architecture

Discussion brief: innovation, distributed authority, and emergent fragility. Covers the leverage of composite materials versus globalized subsystem design authority, tight coupling, the 2013 battery crisis, financial pressure on architectural trade-offs, and what a chief systems architect should have embedded in 2003.

Case study (PDF)

I. System thinking

The campus delivery robot

Chapters 1–3

In-class exercise and Homework 3: a fleet of sidewalk delivery robots carrying meals across campus. Run the four tasks of system thinking (system, form, and function; entities, boundary, and context; relationships; emergence) and then classify the system’s complexity.

Handout (PDF)

II. Analysis of system architecture

Your bike, Part 1: form

Chapter 4

In-class activity: describe what an ordinary single-speed bike is without saying what it does. Parts list, level-1 abstractions, hierarchy, a design structure matrix of formal structure, and the boundary of the whole product system, motivated by a rubbing brake, a rack that will not fit, and a hillier campus.

Handout (PDF)

Your bike, Part 2: function

Chapter 5

Homework: the same bike, now asking what it does. The primary externally delivered function, principal internal functions, the functional architecture, and secondary value-related functions, following the four questions of Table 5.1.

Handout (PDF)

Your bike, Part 3: architecture

Chapter 6

Homework: the same bike, now asking which part does what. Allocate each process of the pedaling pathway to its instrument, trace how the formal structure carries the interactions, sort the remaining parts into non-idealities and supporting layers, and define the interfaces at the boundary, following Questions 6a–6d of Table 6.1.

Handout (PDF)