Comparative analysis¶
In engineering design it is common practice to compare different architectures. For example, to highlight the differences or commonalities between two conceptual designs, different generations of a system, or different products within a portfolio. In the Delta analysis section, an example is given of an architecture difference analysis. Following that, an example is given of a commonality study in the Sigma analysis section.
The ragraph.analysis.comparison
module is the one powering these
comparative studies. This module includes two main methods, being the
ragraph.analysis.comparison.delta_graph
and
ragraph.analysis.comparison.sigma_graph
methods, that
enable the calculations of differences and summations, respectively.
The examples use datasets that were created as part of the MultiWaterWerken, MultiWaterWorks or MWW
for short, project of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure "Rijkswaterstaat". The graphs used here
describe waterway locks as components
(nodes) that share interfaces (edges) along which different flows are exchanged (weights range from
0 to 2 max). As an example, the architecture of MWW Lock "Sambeek" is given in sambeek
, which is
created using the following snippet:
Delta analysis¶
The delta analysis, or difference analysis, enables you to highlight the differences between to graph objects. In this example, the graph objects represent product architectures of waterway navigation locks. For two given architecture graphs we can then calculate the delta graph to detect the unique parts (nodes) to each architecture, as well as their commonalities or unchanged parts.
The following snippet calculates a delta graph between the MWW locks "Sambeek" and "Sluis15"
with default settings (more on that later). This by default gives us a graph (here named delta
)
that separates nodes and edges by assigning different values for the kind
property.
Let's inspect the results some further:
While these numbers offer some insight in the amount of change in architecture, they are better visualized using a MDM. Let's create one!
In this figure we have plotted the three node kinds in the sequence ["delta_a", "delta_b",
"common"]
. The upper left of the MDM designates the nodes that are unique to the first graph (the
"a"
graph), followed by the nodes unique to the second graph (the "b"
graph), and on the bottom
right their common core.
The edges are categorized in the same manner as the nodes using their kind. On, from, and towards
the "delta_a"
nodes on the top left you will only find edges with a "delta_a"
kind and the same
holds for the "delta_b"
nodes and related edges right thereafter. Inside their "common"
shared
nodes, we can find edges that are also shared between both graphs. A "common"
edge is an edge that
shares the same source node name, target node name, kind, labels, and weights in the original two
graphs. As soon as any of these properties differ or no counterpart is present, an edge of a
"delta_a"
or "delta_b"
kind is added accordingly.
In the figure above, you can find that Sambeek contains 6 elements that Sluis15 does not have versus two elements the other way around. However, since these components fulfill fairly similar uses (safety precautions and communication installations), we can see that their interfaces are rather interchangeable. Their common core shows a very high commonality with regards to their interfaces, too, although one should not tread lightly over such changes. Especially in case of large moving components such as the doors, actuators and leveling systems in case of waterway locks.
Tweaking results¶
The delta analysis supports various tweaks. The naming of the categories is customizable through the
identically named function arguments to
ragraph.analysis.comparison.delta_graph
. For instance,
providing common="shared"
will rename the common node kind to "shared"
. The delta_a
and
delta_b
arguments can be used similarly.
If you wish to store the categorization information in the node or edge labels or annotations
instead of the kinds, you can supply a ragraph.analysis.comparison.TagMode] to the
tag_modeargument of [
delta_graph`.
Finally, the uniqueness of nodes and edges is calculated using descriptors, which are abstractions
of both nodes or edges based on a couple of properties. These need to be hashable such that the
delta analysis can make use of set operations to find the unique and shared instances according to
those descriptions. If you wish to implement your own, take a look at the abstract classes
ragraph.analysis.comparison.NodeDescriptorLike
and
ragraph.analysis.comparison.EdgeDescriptorLike
or their default implementations
ragraph.analysis.comparison.NodeDescriptor
and
ragraph.analysis.comparison.EdgeDescriptor
.
Sigma analysis¶
The sigma analysis excels in portfolio analysis while the delta_analysis excels in highlighting the commonalities and differences between two graphs or architectures. When doing an analysis of larger sets of graphs, it is often easier to distinguish patterns from their sum rather than their individual differences. These summed graphs can be subjected to weighted clustering analysis, which aids in identifying modules (clusters) of components (nodes) that predominantly form the common core of a product portfolio, modules that are optional and modules that are unique.
The MWW lock datasets are plentiful, and therefore we can use those to calculate a sigma graph. The following snippet calculates a sigma graph for the Eefde, Hansweert, Sambeek, Sluis15 en Volkerak locks. After that, a baseline figure using some sensible styling is created for further inspection, which is included further below.
This snippet shows that we now have a summed graph containing 64 nodes and 490 edges, of which the
DSM can be found in the figure below. The sigma graph contains counts as opposed the categories in
the delta analysis and all calculated information is therefore stored into the weights attached to
the graph, nodes, and edges. Weights are introduced for edge occurrence (here seen as "sigma"
) for
any attached labels ("sigma_label_default"
for the "default"
label) and regular weights are
summed, too. With these datasets, we are only interested in the absolute edge counts or their
attached weights, since there is no other information except the default values in them.
Clustering sigma graphs¶
Sigma graphs are great candidates for a clustering analysis. Such an analysis applied to graphs representing system architectures aids in identifying modules (clusters) of components (nodes) that predominantly form the common core of a product portfolio, modules that are optional and modules that are unique.
With the MWW graphs that are used as an example in this section, we have to make sure we use an
appropriate weight while performing the clustering analysis. The "sigma"
weight, i.e. the number
of times a certain edge occurred in the individual graphs combined, should give the most predictable
results. If you would be interested in a more mono-disciplinary result, you could use a different
edge weight.
As this is a product architecture dataset, we expect to find a bus module formed by highly
integrative components and several modules with strong interdependencies but relatively little
dependencies between those modules. Therefore, the
ragraph.analysis.heuristics.markov_gamma
seems an
appropriate bus-detection and clustering heuristic to use. The style in the previous paragraph is
re-used here and the resulting figure can be found below.
In this figure we can observe that the analysis put the main construction components and installations as the "bus" of the system. From an engineering perspective this is rather unsurprising. Separating these bus components from the remaining components gives a clearer view in the remaining modules that are "built on" or "bolted on" the bus.
Furthermore, the layout of a waterway lock is still clearly represented in the clustering. The upper
lock head ("bovenhoofd", abbreviated as "Bo"
, row 10-15) and lower lock head ("benedenhoofd",
abbreviated as "Be"
, row 16-20) are still very much grouped together with their doors. This also
holds for the ways into and out of the lock, where you typically find the waiting spaces and
queueing facilities (row 28-40). The power grid utilities are also neatly grouped together in rows
21 to 24, as well as some control components that are related to the lock head (doors).
All combined, this gives an overview of what a "Superlock" would look like. The shade of the given interfaces represents its occurrence, which gives an insight in the "essence", "optionality", or even "rarity" of an interface. Very light color shades might indicate opportunities for deprecation in the future, such that you can simplify your product portfolio. Very dark or clusters of very darkly shaded interfaces indicate they are omnipresent and are prime candidates for standardization.
Engineering judgment¶
Figures like these are incredibly useful to kickstart your portfolio understanding or discussions based on numbers instead of gut feeling. However, whilst they can highlight opportunities for standardization or deprecation of components or interfaces, the engineering judgment whether it is a good or feasible opportunity to pursue remains quintessential.