Architecture Description Method for Open Systems-of-Systems to Reduce Misunderstanding the Scopes of Managed Objects

Abstract

The previous study argued that companies which do not consider or clarify managed objects as either a monolithic system or a system-of-systems (SoS). They are likely to confront problems in their analysis of cost and benefit relationships. In addition, managed objects are Systems-of-Systems that need to assume changing whether they are closed systems or open systems. Specifically, open Systems-of-Systems dynamically connect to each other in order to collectively provide a superordinate functionality, which could not be provided by a single system alone. In addition, the components and the structure of an open system-of-systems cannot be completely predicted at design stage, so that a typical top-down approach based on a concrete system would not work. Therefore, the aim of this study is to propose an architecture description method that clarifies the objects to reduce misunderstanding the scopes of managed objects at the designing open System-of-Systems. In other words, the proposed description method in this study is an open SoS design approach which is emergence-aware, in order to predict both components and the structure of an open SoS at design stage. The description methods dealt with in this study are life cycle, context diagram, use case specification (use case description), function flow block diagram, and allocation. The evaluation method is to confirm from the two viewpoints of whether the subjects can describe the managed objects as open SoS (Descriptability) and whether the subject can explain the managed objects as open SoS (Explainability). The results of this study suggested that the proposed architecture description method is effective for the subjects to recognize open SoS from the viewpoints of Descriptability and Explainability.