System architecture

We help solve cross-disciplinary innovation challenges – creating a “system architecture” to model your project from many points of view

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In large innovation projects, many common challenges arise from the collision between multiple ways of thinking.

Whether you’re bringing together multiple technology interfaces in a product design, or balancing the needs of stakeholders as part of a service project, the resulting complexity can carry a risk of failure – especially if misunderstandings are overlooked.

At Exclin, we believe that when systems threaten to collide, it’s never too early to take a step back – and start creating models that give you the clarity you need.

Using established methodologies from the world of systems engineering, we can offer you the models and roadmaps you need to successfully implement your project – in the form of a system architecture.

We offer consulting services to help create that system architecture – to help you achieve your business vision and meet your innovation goals.

How do we help you innovate?

We help you model complex challenges

A system architecture gives you an easy-to-understand model of your business or technology challenge, from multiple points of view. This means:

  • You increase the chance of project success, because your strategy takes into account multiple perspectives – including those that uncover potential points of failure.

  • You increase your chance of getting your project off the ground – with enterprise-ready models that can help you make the case for investment or support.

We follow a step-by-step process

Our approach to system architecture involves the following steps:

  1. 1.

    Discover the needs of stakeholders

    At the start of your project, we collect as much information as we can, from the purpose of your organisation to the needs of multiple system stakeholders – including users, and the possible use cases for your service or product.

    As part of this, we aim to understand the scope, cost and quality of the system you plan to design – and consider the larger ecosystem, including threats and available resources.

  2. 2.

    Model the architecture

    Based on these high-level needs, our goal is to create a model (or models) of a unified architecture for your project or system – expressing the functions, components, interfaces, behavioural dynamics and performance criteria.

    We use established reference architectures and modelling standards to represent the complexity as best we can to allow the project to be implemented – while facilitating a shared vision of the system objectives.

    The idea is to express how stakeholder needs can be efficiently met – taking into account issues such as enabling technologies, required attributes, interoperability issues and in some cases the business model of your organisation.

    We may generate alternative architecture models – helping you understand the trade-off between different options.

  3. 3.

    Prototype and iterate

    To verify the feasibility of a concept, a prototype – or beta service – is essential. This helps you clarify stakeholders’ needs, explore further trade-offs, and refine your understanding of risks and opportunities.

    As well as helping you check performance and reduce errors, a prototype or beta service is a chance to bring people together. By opening conversations, it helps you iterate successfully, making the progressive changes you need.

  4. 4.

    Optimise

    A system model can allow for optimisation to improve system performance. Usually, this will mean applying optimisation and simulation tools, allowing design characteristics to be fine-tuned.

    You can also use configuration management to offer different levels of performance – either to support a range of marketing offers, or to meet legal constraints.

  5. 5.

    Validate

    Validation is an essential step, to ensure the system conforms to expectations you have set.

    You can use validation to ensure that cause-and-effect relationships are designed accurately – and that the proposed architecture is not only achievable, but meets criteria such as performance, environmental and design constraints.

  6. 6.

    Deploy

    Once the system architecture is completed and accepted, you can start implementing, integrating, testing and deploying your system. But that’s not the end of the process: we can support you along these phases and with any refinements you need.

Contact us

How can we help you model your innovation project? Get in touch to start the conversation

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