The concept of "design" and its management
is complex and shall be understood for the purpose of this article
to comprise of the following activities performed within the system
life cycle.
An acquirer will formulate his requirements (with or without aid
from prospective suppliers) and after negotiations, calculations,
and demonstrations a 'System Specification' and 'SOW' shall be
prepared and agreed which will describe the acceptable requirements
to the acquirer. (Define what is possible)
Using the 'System Specification' a number of creative activities;
analysis, simulations, allocation, synthesis, and tests on models
or prototypes (rapid prototyping) will be performed and the 'System
Specification' updated until the functional and allocated baselines
are agreed.
Engineering and Manufacturing development phase ensues during
which prototypes and pre-production models may be built to finalize
a production build standard.
The end-product of the design activity will be drawings, specifications,
and design (CSCI and HWCI) descriptions of the comprising system
and subsystems. These will be individually approved as the Product
baseline. The total product baselines will provide the production
baseline from which each system will be produced or manufactured.
Design reviews shall be held incrementally
with the aim of satisfying senior management and the customer
(acquirer) that the design will satisfy all aspects of the system
requirements.
The design should always be at the 'threshold of possibility' to ensure that an effective system is produced within the constraints of cost, timescales, and performance.
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