COMBINING USER WORKFLOW AND SYSTEM FUNCTIONS IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

摘要

This research addresses two aspects of multi disciplinary product development; understanding what the customer needs and translating this knowledge effectively into a transparent system architecture. A clear overview and understanding of this architecture can be obtained by using function models. How to make an effective translation from the customer needs to function models is not trivial. The approach taken in this research is to discuss, develop, negotiate, align and model the intended users' workflow of the system. Multiple stakeholders (e.g. buyer, user, marketers, application experts, architects, designers and third party suppliers) should participate in this process. The user workflow is systematically mapped to a system function model. The contributions of this paper can be divided in two. First a systematic and easily applicable design method to capture and validate user requirements in a multi disciplinary design process using explicit workflow models is proposed. Secondly a systematic method of translating user workflow models to system function models will be given.