An abstract concept denoting the lowest layer of design of general interest to System Engineering during development. At this point in the product structure, no further abstract decomposition (e.g., Functional) is necessary to achieve the intended developmental purpose, so no more Development Requirements remain to be allocated to a design. Any requirements below this layer are written directly to manufacturing 1. The corollary of this notion is that the point of implementation is also the layer at which System Verification processes typically begin collection of formal qualification data.
The concept derives from concepts of hardware drawing types and applications taken in the context of Development Specifications. It should be observed that the same drawing system includes Software Installation Drawings (SID), for which the phrasing works equally well (since a SID merely connects software to the hardware on which it can be installed, which is a manufacturing step).
Note that the above definition is careful to address qualification data alone. Acceptance data can be collected at lower levels. This admits to the notion that additional Physical Decomposition can be conducted below the Point of Implementation.
Footnotes- That being the essential purpose of an identifying drawing in the hardware world[↩]