About RFLP Systems

A system involves a combination of many disciplines that are interacting during the engineering process. The difficulty is to manage these concurrent multidisciplinary processes to provide a product that meets the requirements and the customer's needs. Dassault Systèmes approach for system engineering is mainly a top-down process starting from the stakeholder's needs to a system design and implementation. This approach is called RFLP. It is based on Requirements, allocated to Functional, Logical, and Physical architecture components.

This page discusses:

Requirement System

Requirements are expression of needs, product characteristics, or activities that a system has to satisfy.

There are two main categories of requirements:

  • Functional requirement referring to what the system must do

    Example: The system must add numbers

  • Nonfunctional requirement referring to how the system must be, how far it must perform etc.

    Example: The calculator must cost fewer than 10 dollars.

Functional System

The Functional category defines:

  • Functions and subfunctions, that is, services the product must provide to fulfill its requirements
  • Input and output flows of the function. There are two kinds of flows: data flow (exchange of data) and control flow (order of activation/de-activation of the function)
  • Relations between functions, that is, the explicit exchange of flow between functions

A Dymola or FMI behavior can be associated to a function to:

  • Define how this function manages input/output and how it reacts to external events
  • Enable a virtual execution

Logical System

The Logical category defines:

  • Logical components and subcomponents
  • Logical ports: There are two kinds of logical ports, causal (In, Out and In/Out direction) and a-causal (no direction)
  • Types or types of data: Information associated to a logical port to specify the type of data going through that port
  • Relations between logical ports, that is, the explicit exchange of data between components (the ports defining the type of data exchanged through the connection)

A Dymola or FMI behavior can be associated to a logical component to:

  • Define how this logical component manages input/output and how it reacts to external events
  • Enable a virtual execution

Physical System

The Physical category provides a virtual definition of the real world product, including 3D representation. This is the less abstract category of an RFLP description.

RFLP Apps

This table describes the apps you can use to work with RFLP systems.

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Explore and manage RFLP structures System Finder
Author requirementsTraceable Requirements Management
Display, navigate and create implement links between requirements, functions, logical componentsFunctional & Logical Design or Systems Architecture Design
Author and execute functional or logical systemsFunctional & Logical Design or Systems Architecture Design
Create, navigate, and manage diagrams
  • Systems Architecture Design for all types of diagrams.
  • Functional & Logical Design for sequence diagrams.
Author electrical, fluid, or hvac logical systems Electrical Systems Design,Piping & Tubing Systems Design, and HVAC Systems Design
Author and create:
  • Dymola behaviors (created in functional and logical systems)
  • FMI behaviors (created in functional and logical systems)
  • Dymola behavior libraries (created for functional or logical systems)
 Dymola Behavior Modeling
Note: For FMI behaviors, Systems Architecture Design can also be used, but with more limited support.
Author 3D modeling for systems reservation and pathways Systems 3D Allocation
Author physical systemsProduct Structure Design