The FMI Standard for Systems Modeling

Modeling and simulation have been an essential part of product development engineering across all industries and disciplines for decades. This work has been typically conducted by subject matter experts where too often the fruits of their labor have been largely inaccessible to other members of their enterprise who need these data to perform their tasks. Additionally, different CAE simulation vendors typically rely upon their own proprietary formats and interfaces for software tools that they have developed and maintain. This further complicates the ability for end users to share data among different engineering groups and across different engineering disciplines. To overcome these problems, the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) was developed as an international standard for systems modeling. It addresses many of the issues associated with sharing of simulation information both inside and outside the enterprise.