Discuss some examples of trade-off analyses or studies that might be needed between the logical and physical architecture stages of the PSD phase in the context of either the ATM, Cashiering, Cargo, or Traffic systems.

During the Preliminary System Design (PSD) phase, we develop an architectural view of the system as we intend to design it. We always develop a logical architecture that involves components that will satisfy any functional requirements allocated to them (e.g. Cash Register Component, Card Reader Component, Conveyance Component, Bagging Area Component). We eventually, but not necessarily immediately, will design a physical architecture (e.g. a particular set of supported commercial cash registers, a particular set of supported card readers, a particular range of bagging area sizes and positions). The bridge — and thus the timing delay — between the logical and physical architectures is the need to conduct one or more trade-off studies in order to establish the most desired or appropriate technical directions for the physical architecture. Discuss some examples of trade-off analyses or studies that might be needed between the logical and physical architecture stages of the PSD phase in the context of either the ATM, Cashiering, Cargo, or Traffic systems. Comment on whether your examples would be trying to make a specific design decision about some capability, or if they are being used to generate polymorphic variation options for the architecture. Does your emerging business case analysis have an impact on that thinking? Note that the trade-off studies between logical and physical architectures are just one example of where trade-off studies might be placed in the engineering lifecycle. We would undoubtedly have done one or more trade studies during the early CSD phase, and we’ll undoubtedly need more trade-off studies when we get to Detail Design & Development phase and beyond. Trad-off studies take many forms and are an invaluable tool for understanding and clarifying alternatives in systems engineering.