The systems engineering tools analysis project

If a system is to be actually built, then the system must ultimately be described as a collection of state machines. Systems engineers usually do not continue down to this level of detail. They use a tool that helps them generate a high level abstraction of the desired system. Then they turn this design over to the specialty engineers who actually reduce it to state machines. Early in the design process, a tool must be selected for designing the needed system. The tool to be used is usually dictated by what tools the designer has previously used, not by an open selection process. In this paper we provide descriptions of available design tools and examples of their use. The top level question we wish to answer is-for which type of problem is each tool best? This paper presents the beginning of a long project. We intend to enlarge the study by including dozens more tools and a few more problems