System Engineering

Systematic approach or process to develop the complete system is called System Engineering. System is
a collection of components —machine, software and human — which co-operate in an organized way to
achieve some desired result i.e. the targets of some demands or requirements.

Example: The UK Railway System. Some Main Components of this system are

 The trains, and their speed

 The tracks, and their ability to support high-speed trains
 The stations and station staff and passengers management, and the waiting time, etc.
 The drivers, and their ability to control the trains
 The signaling subsystems
 The train control and detection subsystems
 The power delivery subsystems

The Role of a Software in System Engineering

Software is only a smaller part within a larger system, which is built by applying the software engineering
approaches during the whole process of System Engineering.

Software Engineering
Software engineering is a systematic approach and may be a sub-activity of system engineering, which is
associated with development of the software parts of the large system using well-defined scientific
principles, methods and procedures.

Requirements Engineering
It is a sub-process within system engineering, which is related to defining, establishing and managing the
requirements of the complete product/system. It is also sub-process within software engineering, which
is related to defining, establishing and managing the Software Requirements (The S.R.E).
System Context
System means an interacting combination of elements to accomplish a defined objective. These include
hardware, software, firmware, people, information, techniques, facilities, services, and other support
elements.

System requirements are the requirements for the system as a whole. In a system containing software
components, their software requirements specification are derived from system requirements
specifications. Developers of systems with substantial software and non-software components, for
example a modern Airline System, often we separate the description of system requirements
specifications from the description of software requirements specifications. Thus, when system
requirements are specified, the software requirements are derived from the system requirements Strictly
speaking, system requirements specification is a pure systems engineering activity whereas the Software
requirements specification activity is a sub-activity of this.

(SyRS) or the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) is a document or set of documentation that
describes the features and behavior of a complete system or software application. We differentiate
between them as; System Requirements Specification (SyRS) and Software Requirements Specification
(SRS).

Software Application Context

Software Application consists of a number of information processing processes. Information processing
processes can be further divided into four classes:

1. Input Processes

Input processes obtain information from outside the application boundary. The information
would be provided by an entity (an individual, a machine or another computer application). The
input can be data (facts, and figures about an entity).

2. Output Processes
Output processes send information across the application boundary. The recipients of
information would be an entity (an individual, a machine or another computer application). The
output could be a report either on paper or computer screen or input to other application it could
also be control data to trigger another application. The giving / receiving application can be on
another computer or on another machine.

3. Core Process
Core processes performs the actual processing steps of the application. The recipients of
information would be an entity (an individual, a machine or another computer application). The
core process transforms the input to the desired corresponding output. The giving, processing
and the receiving information can be on different machine too machine.
 4. Associative Processes
Associative processes are those processes that aid and assist the input and output processes in
information processing. For example a login process is neither an (data) input nor an output to
the main application. Similarly a file upload, an integrity checking process and the Power On
Diagnostics process are associative processes.

Information Processing Processes

Software Application is formed by number of processes, technically these are called information
processing processes (IPP). They are the actual software functions and these small processes are triggered
by different events Requirements elicitation / gathering activity obtains the details of all processes that
form a software application.

Attributes of IPP
 Inputs — Each IPP receives certain inputs
 Outputs — Each IPP delivers some outputs
 Processing — Each IPP carries out some processing steps or the transformation of inputs to the
corresponding outputs
 Triggers — Each IPP needs a trigger (occurrence of an event) that initiates the process into
execution

IPP & SRS

We enumerate all the information about the processing processes (IPP) and then define and describe their
four attributes. When have complete information about each of the IPP comprising the software
application, it means that we have a complete software requirements specification document. And form
the point we jump to the Design Step.