Aggregate views to manage complex dependency models

Engineered systems are often modelled as dependency models that are analysed for their structure to better plan, design, and improve their behaviour. Often, these models consist of different coexisting classes of entities ('domains') and relations ('relationship types'). To render such often-complex models more compact, this paper discusses the principles of condensing them into aggregate views of fewer domains and relationship-types. Three different strategies are proposed: path searching, attribution, and superposition. For each, the resulting aggregate models are reviewed, and principles to working with the resulting aggregate relationship types are presented. A case study is discussed to illustrate the approach.