To successfully develop a system, a solid understanding of its architecture by stakeholders involved in the development of the system is key. This process is supported by System Architects, who have a profession that is often regarded as experience based. However, we argue that it is important to familiarize students with the concept of System Architecting, so that they are at least receptive of the nuances involved and potentially can continue a pathway of development towards such a role. In this paper we explore the potential use of A3 Architecture Overviews (A3AO) as an educational tool to support familiarization with Systems Engineering and Systems Architecting. The A3AO has been developed as a supportive tool to communicate a system’s architecture. It uses diagrams to model and visualize a system with different views and is intended to be printed on a physical A3 paper. It serves as a reference for, and facilitator of design discussions. Skills envisioned to be developed while using an A3AO include strict selection and visualization of information, two critical competencies to handle systems’ complexity. The A3AOs have been applied in a course on Systems Engineering at an applied University in The Netherlands and were part of the assessed deliverables. The relative free-form nature of the A3AO posed students with various dilemmas in their use, but also provided the opportunity for guided development on the envisioned competencies. We conclude that more research is required to further formalize this guided development, but we also experience that the A3AO has the potential to support systems engineering and systems architecting practices in education.
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Presentation of the paper under the same name at the INCOSE SySTEAM: 2023 Inaugural Conference
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Many quality aspects of software systems are addressed in the existing literature on software architecture patterns. But the aspect of system administration seems to be a bit overlooked, even though it is an important aspect too. In this work we present three software architecture patterns that, when applied by software architects, support the work of system administrators: PROVIDE AN ADMINISTRATION API, SINGLE FILE LOCATION, and CENTRALIZED SYSTEM LOGGING. PROVIDE AN ADMINISTRATION API should solve problems encountered when trying to automate administration tasks. The SINGLE FILE LOCATION pattern should help system administrators to find the files of an application in one (hierarchical) place. CENTRALIZED SYSTEM LOGGING is useful to prevent coming up with several logging formats and locations. Abstract provided by the authors. Published in PLoP '13: Proceedings of the 20th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs ACM.
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Due to the exponential growth of ecommerce, the need for automated Inventory management is crucial to have, among others, up-to-date information. There have been recent developments in using drones equipped with RGB cameras for scanning and counting inventories in warehouse. Due to their unlimited reach, agility and speed, drones can speed up the inventory process and keep it actual. To benefit from this drone technology, warehouse owners and inventory service providers are actively exploring ways for maximizing the utilization of this technology through extending its capability in long-term autonomy, collaboration and operation in night and weekends. This feasibility study is aimed at investigating the possibility of developing a robust, reliable and resilient group of aerial robots with long-term autonomy as part of effectively automating warehouse inventory system to have competitive advantage in highly dynamic and competitive market. To that end, the main research question is, “Which technologies need to be further developed to enable collaborative drones with long-term autonomy to conduct warehouse inventory at night and in the weekends?” This research focusses on user requirement analysis, complete system architecting including functional decomposition, concept development, technology selection, proof-of-concept demonstrator development and compiling a follow-up projects.
