Abstract. The simulation of large scale nonlinear dynamical interconnected systems, as they arise in all modern engineering disciplines, is a usual task. Due to the high complexity of the considered systems, the principle of thinking in hierarchical structures is essential and common among engineers. Therefore, this contribution proposes an approach for the numerical simulation of large systems, which keeps the hierarchical system structure alive during the entire simulation process while simultaneously exploiting it for order reduction purposes. This is accomplished by embedding the trajectory piecewise linear order reduction scheme in a modified variant of the component connection modeling for building interconnected system structures. The application of this concept is demonstrated by means of a widely used benchmark example and a modified variant of it.