The vision of FMI is to support this approach: if the real product is to be assembled from a wide range of parts interacting in complex ways, each controlled by a complex set of physical laws, then it should be possible to create a virtual product that can be assembled from a set of models that each represent a combination of parts, each a model of the physical laws as well as a model of the control systems (using electronics, hydraulics, and digital software) assembled digitally.
Activities from systems modelling, simulation, validation and test can be covered with the FMI based approach.
To create the FMI standard, a large number of software companies and research centers have worked in a cooperation project established through a European consortium that has been conducted by Dassault Systèmes under the name of MODELISAR.
In May 2014, the project group Smart Systems Engineering (SmartSE) of the ProSTEP iViP Association published its Recommendation PSI 11 for the cross-company behavior model exchange.
The PSI 11 specifies interaction scenarios, use cases, a reference process and templates, which thereby could ease the industrial application.