System Engineering & Value Analysis as industrial transformation drivers for a co-development of technologies and organizations

The concept of industrial transformation has been the subject of many scientific publications. This transformation analyses how technologies (physical or digital) support industrial activities. These transformations, which began more than 200 years ago (Industry 1.0 then 2.0), have accelerated over the past several decades due to the acceleration of the emergence of new technologies: IT, electronics, etc. for Industry 3.0, then AI, IoT, CPS, etc. for Industry 4.0. These transformations are unfortunately too often techno-driven and driven by hype effects surrounding new technologies. They very often forget the impacts they can generate within the activities, processes, and associated organisms. They therefore quite often result in non-adoption or partial (i.e., inefficient) adoption of technologies by organizations, or even a forced (unnatural) change of the latter, which then creates organizational entropy and a loss of meaning for the actors. This is clearly shown, among other things, by Gartner curves, the notion of “peak of expectation”, “Trough of disillusionment” and then “plateau of productivity”. The work presented in this paper is oriented towards the objective of co-developing technologies and organizations in order to make the most of technological benefits within industrial processes. This co-development should make it possible to bring together technological opportunities and their exploitation in processes. This is therefore the subject of our research question (i.e., claimed contribution). In order to drive this co-development, the scientific proposal is based on a combination of “value analysis” and “System Engineering” via an indicator that identifies the extent to which the use of technologies in identified processes creates (or does not create) value. This indicator, and its evolution with respect to technological and activities variables, should make it possible to efficiently manage transformations based on the integration, and a coupled analysis, of new technologies opportunities and industrial activities requirements and characteristics.