A critical step in Requirements Engineering is the ability to capture a new product’s features and functions. The criticality of this step is based on not creating GIGO (Garbage-In- Garbage Out) of the intended product’s attributes. To alleviate GIGO in the design phase of New Product simply requires the creation of a design model. Most industries use models for purposes such as studying requirements for system design, examining feasibility and manufacturability of new products and determining how to build an actual system [1].

The Hately/Pirbhai method allows Architectural Models to be built for the purpose of capturing and managing system requirements. By establishing a framework of the target system, a roadmap for developing processes and providing a cue for what models to be built and how to build them is necessary[1]. Capturing requirements for New Product Development projects is basically defining features of the system and the control functions that will execute them. To document these functional objectives requires the New Product Developer to construct a paper model of the system.

The Hately/Pirhai System Architecture model consists of five blocks.

• Main Functions – Activities the core processor must do.
• User Interface – Parts of a system that interacts with the user.
• Input – Functions and subsystems that provide input data for the target system to use.
• Support Functions – Any function or subsystems that provide assistance to the rest of the system to keep it running.
• Output – Functions and subsystems that are controlled by the target system.

With such a paper model built, features & functions of the target system can be mapped into these five architectural categories. Electronics hardware and embedded software code can then be developed, implemented, and managed easily because of the System Architecturing discipline that is instilled in the New Product Developer when using this modeling technique/ design methodology for capturing the features & functions of the intended product.

[1]. Process for System Architecture and Requirements Engineering, Hately, D., Hruschka, P., and Pirhbai, I., Dorsett House Publishing 2000.