Communication of a proposed or existing system design is an extremely important aspect of any system analysis. If the concept and intricacies of the design cannot be communicated to the evaluation personnel, analysis and improvement is quite likely to be impossible. The ability to communicate the design so as to be understandable by a group of analysts with widely ranging skills requires some type of standardization. The ICAM Definition (IDEF) languages have been proposed as just such a standardization methodology (ICAM = integrated computer-aided manufacturing).

The IDEF₀ modeling capability was used to quantify a generic high level planning and control system for major airframe manufacture. The system designed was generic in nature; therefore it was not representative of any current existing system. This paper will discuss the IDEF methodology, applicability of IDEF₀ as a system design standard, and results from IDEF₀ application to the analysis of airframe manufacture.