IDEF3 formalization report

The Process Description Capture Method (IDEF3) is one of several Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing (ICAM) DEFinition methods developed by the Air Force to support systems engineering activities, and in particular, to support information systems development. These methods have evolved as a distillation of 'good practice' experience by information system developers and are designed to raise the performance level of the novice practitioner to one comparable with that of an expert. IDEF3 is meant to serve as a knowledge acquisition and requirements definition tool that structures the user's understanding of how a given process, event, or system works around process descriptions. A special purpose graphical language accompanying the method serves to highlight temporal precedence and causality relationships relative to the process or event being described.