Decomposition Relationship Visualization for Executable Architecture Diagrams

Systems architecting tools assist in describing and analyzing complex systems and promote the design of better systems through structured analysis. As a system in and of itself, an architecting tool can be subject to betterments, adjustments, and improvements, which add to its usefulness for the architecting community. The implementation of architecting principles within a tool can increase the efficiency of that tool and its user. The research described in this paper provides a functional model comparison of some standard functional notations, and specifies an architect's need for additional graphical indicators on executable diagrams. These indicators are intended to deliver improved visualization of disconnects among various levels of functional decomposition on executable diagrams to improve the efficiency of the design process. This paper proposes small enhancements to current executable modeling notations to graphically identify decompositional disconnects on EFFBD and action diagrams. The suggested implementation detects and illustrates inconsistencies in decompositional relationships, which generate errors if these relationships are overlooked by the user during diagram construction. Several examples are shown to portray the lack of graphical indicators on executable diagrams, forcing the user to manually identify illogical relationships, and rerun the simulation until it succeeds in running to completion; this is a process that can be very time consuming as a result of user error. Proposed notational enhancements increase efficiency by lessening repetitive efforts and time troubleshooting these user errors causing discrepancies found in simulation.