An Approach to Development of System Architecture in Large Collaborative Projects

Innovation projects in manufacturing domain often include several end users with different use cases that require a special approach for converging to one architecture solution, which addresses the needs of all end users. The communication between end users and developers in different research and software development projects should be supported correspondingly. This paper describes an approach to development of software intensive system architecture in large collaborative projects that extends traditional approaches with different architecture viewpoints and additional iterative steps aiming to design a main platform integrating project solutions. The approach is applied and validated in a large collaborative EU-funded H2020 research project entitled Z-Factor, i.e. Zero-defect manufacturing strategies towards on-line production management for European factories. Based on the standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 that implies a process based on a set of relevant architecture viewpoints and following the architecture development approach introduced in this study, Z-Factor platform is defined by the following viewpoints: conceptual, functional, information, and deployment.