Disclaimer: The below is a collation of material that I have put together. In addition to my own experience on the subject important references are:

• S. Friedenthal "A Practical Guide to SysML" 3rd edition, MK/OMG Press (2015).

Models can either be descriptive, analytical or executable. Tools that support modeling of systems are limited to that purpose whilst the model often requires other tools to supplement the model. For example typically other development tools include:

• Configuration and Data Management Tool
• Requirements Management Tool
• Project Management Modeling Tool
• System of System / Business Modeling Tool
• Development Tool
  • Mechanical Modeling Tool
  • Software Modeling Tool
  • Software Modeling Tool
• Simulation and Analysis Tool
• Verification Tool
• Document and View Generation Tool

Take an engine as our example element. The element may appear in Configuration and Data Management Tool with a particular version, in Requirements Management tool as a requirement, in Mechanical Modeling tool as a CAD file, etc. If these elements have no relationships between them then it would require an enormous effort to maintain a single element across a range of tools.

The modeler needs to define the relationship between tools if there is a divergence of fidelity. The modeler needs to define whether relationships between tools have

• equivalence. For instance, one side of the relationship is the 'supplier', the other being the 'client'. It should not be possible to edit the 'client' side but if the 'supplier' is updated then the 'client' should be updated to reflect the change
• non-equivalence. For example, the element 'engine' in the systems modeling tool may have a mass specification property whilst the same property in the Mechanical modeling tool may reflect the as-designed mass property.

Interface between system modeling tool and development tool may be expressed as blocks that represent component black-box specifications with their ports, functions/operations and value properties.

System Modeling tool can typically perform simulations, particularly around state machines and activities. However, for example thermal simulation, there are other tools better suited to the purpose to execute high fidelity simulations

In this case relevant portion of the system modeling tool can be extracted, transformed and augmented with necessary detail in the analytical model before analysis is performance.