For Airbus, the System of interest is the aircraft as an integrated whole. Airbus aircrafts operates in the World Air Transportation System, the containing System. The Landing Gear for example is a subsystem, which, in turn is composed of different subsystems.
The Aircraft has been analyzed starting from a top-level concept. A systematic functions definition has been carried out, as consequence of the two main Aircraft functions (move from departure to arrival and carry payload), bearing in mind the environment the A/C is operating in, and several other considerations. The picture has been completed keeping in mind also all the constraints the aircraft has to deal with and the parameters, which drive the design from a performances perspective.
One of the major challenges facing Airbus’ engineers today is the smooth and timely integration and test of all the complex systems on the final Aircraft. This work make of the rigor and formalism one of its strength and thus wants to provide a methodology, to give a response to address this problem. The model has been build using the SysML (Systems Modelling Language), a new modelling language that is supposed to became the standard for description and specification of complex systems. The strength of SysML is not in it that it is a standard or a tool, but that it is a language.