Dependency relations between models in the Unified Process

The goal of the Unified Process is to guide developers in efficiently implementing and deploying systems that meet customer needs. During the Unified Process, a variety of models of the system are developed. All these models are not independent, they are related to each other. Elements in one model have trace dependencies to other models: they are semantically overlapping and together represent the system as a whole. It is necessary to have a precise definition of the syntax and semantics of the different models and their relationships, since the lack of accuracy in their definition can lead to wrong model interpretations and inconsistency between models. We distinguish three different kinds of dependency relations between models and propose a formal description of them. The goal of the proposed formalization is to provide formal foundations for tools that perform intelligent analysis on models expressed in UML assisting software engineers throughout the development process.