Model reuse is a longstanding challenge within the defense simulation modeling community. While other disciplines successfully apply component-based approach to build systems, this approach has proven difficult to apply in simulation model development. The significance of employing explicit and distinct experimental frames to support reuse is already well recognized. Yet, characterization of the original context of a model is one of the least appreciated aspects and central to reuse and composability. Methods and tools are needed to provide mechanisms for structured representation and storage of context information, effective ways for retrieving it, and the possibility to relate it to the developer's intention. To this end, the basic model-simulator-experimental frame viewpoint is revisited to assert the role of context in reuse. The significance of separating concept, content, context, and simulator is discussed under the discrete-event system specification (DEVS) framework to provide a basis and rationale for contextualized simulation models. An abstract design strategy is presented to facilitate packaging and distribution of concept and context specification objects along with simulation models to improve reuse and composability.
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