Showing it all on one diagram

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avi-mak

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Aug 12, 2022, 2:51:56 AM8/12/22

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Hi,

I don't know if this is exactly an SysML question. Maybe rather a system engineering question; or even a graphics question. It certainly seems to be a visualization question. Here goes…

The system has very many blocks. Say, about 20 'products' at the top-most level, and each 'product' contains about 15 modules. The sys architect person gave me a representative sketch of 3 products – Product 1, Product 2, etc , showing each product containing 3 modules, Module 1.1, Module 1.2, etc, and Module 2.1 etc. – all shown in one diagram. The sketch shows the modules as dumb lists inside each product.

So I have modeled the representative few blocks and sub-blocks as a BDD and IBD, and now I am wondering what next. If I model them all, it is going to be too large. So I suppose I will just have to tell the architect that I can show only Products in the top-level BDD, and then if the dumb list of modules inside the products are still of any interest then I can model them via sub-BDDs (and sub-IBDs).

I am interested to hear what you guys have to comment.

Thanks

Avi

Walter Roscello

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Sep 11, 2022, 10:19:48 AM9/11/22

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Hi. I see this didn't get a reply.

When I am advising folks on use of SysML, I teach them that every diagram should have a purpose and an audience. Then, the diagram should contain what is needed for that purpose and audience. (You are not obligated to show all the detail on a diagram just because it exists in the model.)

For your example, who are the audiences for your diagrams and what do you want them to understand from them? It is likely that the group that is interested in the similarities and reuse between products does not need a lot of detail on the products, and conversely those that want the details on the products are probably only concerned with one of them. If you have different audiences for these aspects, you should make different diagrams for them. It's even OK to make multiple diagrams for the same part of a system, to show different aspects for different audiences.