A Critique of the Authoritative Source of Truth Concept in Model-Based Systems Engineering

With the ongoing adoption of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) as a best practice in several domains there are ongoing efforts to improve the maturity of MBSE methods. In the vision for MBSE several organizations and actors foresee a landscape where there is a governing system model acting as an Authoritative Source of Truth (ASoT). The main argument for the ASoT is to have a single source where all information can be accessed and written to inside of an organization, supporting consistency and management of data. Recent works have proposed solutions that implement tool chains to support the ASoT. In this paper we take a critical look at the concept of ASoT and discuss several issues that inhibit ASoT creation and maintenance. We discuss challenges from three perspectives; systems theory, technical challenges, and industrial barriers.