Towards a Reference Architecture for Model-Based Engineering Environments

A key aspect of adopting model-based systems engineering as a practice in an organization is the design and development, and adoption of corresponding processes and tools that support the model-based paradigm. In an effort to enable the unified implementation of such processes and tools, this paper introduces a reference architecture model that serves as a specification for a model-based engineering environment. Current systems engineering practices, products, processes and technologies are used as input for continuously refining the architecture model. In the paper, we introduce and report on the current status of this reference architecture model, and present the methodology applied in developing the reference architecture. We conclude that while there are a very large number of domain- or application-specific processes requiring specialized behavior, these can be reduced through abstraction to a small set of core functions that need to be supported by a realization of a model-based engineering environment. Only very few organization-domain- or application-specific aspects require specialized consideration.