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CHAPTER 11 ANALYSIS CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 273

FIGURE 11.1
Analysis as
a bridge
between
system System
engineering engineering
and software
design
Software
requirements
analysis

Software
design

interface characteristics, and uncover additional design constraints. Each of these
tasks serves to describe the problem so that an overall approach or solution may be
synthesized.
For example, an inventory control system is required for a major supplier of
auto parts. The analyst finds that problems with the current manual system include
(1) inability to obtain the status of a component rapidly, (2) two- or three-day turn-
around to update a card file, (3) multiple reorders to the same vendor because
Expect to do a bit of
design during there is no way to associate vendors with components, and so forth. Once prob-
requirements analysis lems have been identified, the analyst determines what information is to be pro-
and a bit of duced by the new system and what data will be provided to the system. For instance,
requirements analysis
during design. the customer desires a daily report that indicates what parts have been taken from
inventory and how many similar parts remain. The customer indicates that inven-
tory clerks will log the identification number of each part as it leaves the inven-
tory area.
Upon evaluating current problems and desired information (input and output), the
analyst begins to synthesize one or more solutions. To begin, the data objects, pro-
cessing functions, and behavior of the system are defined in detail. Once this infor-
mation has been established, basic architectures for implementation are considered.
A client/server approach would seem to be appropriate, but does the software to
support this architecture fall within the scope outlined in the Software Plan? A data-
base management system would seem to be required, but is the user/customer's
need for associativity justified? The process of evaluation and synthesis continues
until both analyst and customer feel confident that software can be adequately spec-
ified for subsequent development steps.