A functional block diagram, in

systems engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking ...

and

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ' ...

, is a block diagram. It describes the functions and interrelationships of a system. The functional block diagram can picture: * Functions of a system pictured by blocks * input and output elements of a block pictured with lines * the relationships between the functions, and * the functional sequences and paths for matter and or signals The block diagram can use additional schematic symbols to show particular properties. Functional block diagrams have been used in a wide range applications, from

, since the late 1950s. They became a necessity in complex systems design to "understand thoroughly from exterior design the operation of the present system and the relationship of each of the parts to the whole."

Harry H. Goode Harry H. Goode (June 30, 1909 – October 30, 1960) was an American computer engineer and systems engineer and professor at the University of Michigan. He is known as co-author of the book ''Systems Engineering'' from 1957, which is one of the earl ...

, Robert Engel Machol (1957) System engineering: an introduction to the design of large-scale systems. p. 306 Many specific types of functional block diagrams have emerged. For example, the

functional flow block diagram A functional flow block diagram (FFBD) is a multi-tier, time-sequenced, step-by-step flow diagram of a system’s functional flow. The term "functional" in this context is different from its use in functional programming or in mathematics, where ...

is a combination of the functional block diagram and the

flowchart A flowchart is a type of diagram that represents a workflow or process. A flowchart can also be defined as a diagrammatic representation of an algorithm, a step-by-step approach to solving a task. The flowchart shows the steps as boxes of va ...

. Many software development methodologies are built with specific functional block diagram techniques. An example from the field of industrial computing is the Function Block Diagram (FBD), a graphical language for the development of software applications for programmable logic controllers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Functional block diagram Diagrams Systems engineering Management cybernetics

See also

References