Strategies for Practical Modeling
When we previously discussed modeling and, more specifically, how we perform the activity of how to model, we related this to the three evils of Systems Engineering, namely: complexity, communication, and understanding. In this section, we shall discuss a number of specific modeling strategies and relate them to the three evils.
From source material to models, and back
One of the main activities that we perform when modeling is to start with some source information and, from this, to create a Model. This source information may take many forms, such as documents, drawings, other Models, equations, operational descriptions, and so on. Indeed, it is often desirable to go from natural, spoken language into a Model. All of these make sense when we think about it because whenever we capture any information, regardless of the format, then we are essentially representing it in the form of some language. At a basic level, therefore, when we perform...