The Model Management package is dependent on the Foundation package. It defines {@link com.idsscheer.aris.common.uml.metamodel.modelmanagement.IUmlModel Model}, {@link com.idsscheer.aris.common.uml.metamodel.modelmanagement.IUmlPackage Package}, and {@link com.idsscheer.aris.common.uml.metamodel.modelmanagement.IUmlSubsystem Subsystem}, which all serve as grouping units for other ModelElements.

Models are used to capture different views of a physical system. Packages are used within a Model to group ModelElements. A Subsystem represents a behavioral unit in the physical system. UML Profiles are packages dedicated to group UML extensions.

In this section it is necessary to clearly distinguish between the physical system being modeled; that is, the subject of the model and the model element that represent the physical system in the model. For this reason, we consistently use the term physical system when we want to indicate the former, and the term (top-level) subsystem when we want to indicate the latter. An example of a physical system is a credit card service, which includes software, hardware, and wetware (people). The UML model for this physical system might consist of a top-level subsystem called CreditCardService, which is decomposed into subsystems for Authorization, Credit, and Billing. An analogy with the construction of houses would be that the house would correspond to the physical system, while a blueprint would correspond to a model, and an element used in a blueprint would correspond to a model element.