5.1. Process engineering under constraints stimulating upstream research

Among the important issues, we can mention recycling, but also economy of raw materials and water energy with the associated classification criteria: new consumption patterns, safety, resource restriction, informed matter, production of carbon-free energy from solar and wind resources, requiring local production with smart grid management (Sabonnadière and Hadjsaïd 2012; Guerassimoff 2013; Randl et al. 2018; Seritan et al. 2018), etc.

• – Circular economy (recycling, but also saving raw materials, energy and water): material and energy resources, which we now know to be limited, whether by their exhaustion, their difficulty of access or their unaffordable price (relative to the market), redefine the space of possible solutions, particularly by recycling and reuse. The question of extending the life of consumer products is also raised. Companies’ profitability could be based on minimizing the manufacture of new products and operating costs, which would make them less dependent on the availability of materials and energy. Can maintenance, repair, recycling and reuse become the rule in the creation of financial value? The creation of possible and profitable short circuits would allow companies to manufacture on demand with increased responsiveness and customization (see Chapter 4, section 4.3).
• – Retransformation economics: until now, reuse has been for products or devices as a whole (e.g. cars) (EU 2019). The idea here is to recover not only the materials but also the intelligence put into the elements used in their construction. Production technologies are evolving towards retransformation technologies that allow materials to be reused (if possible) indefinitely, by retransforming them on site since they are already as close as possible to users and thus continuously create new products (Brown 2013; Koytsoumpa et al. 2018; Media-Terre 2018). The energy demand is then local, of a reasonable level and on demand, which leads to an appropriate reorganization of production. Product reconfiguration industries are being created, starting with services provided between people and the development of consumer-to-consumer trade.

Important subsets can be defined as regions that can be reused by disassembly. Zhang et al. (2018) have developed a 3D CAD model that allows the generation of sub-assemblies from pre-existing 3D assembly models for reuse. On this basis, all the intelligence used in the manufacture of the elements of the device is reused, and not only the material or part of it, where some non-reused elements become final waste. Collection networks must be rethought to invent and develop new industrial processes, based on the dismantling and separation of products to prepare new materials and components, allowing their transformation in new productions or their reassembly into new products. This is the underlying idea of the implementation of micro-plants built near consumer sites, based on short circuits for which direct and inverse supply chains are integrated. These logistics chains favoring the circularity of materials and energy can allow the development of new partnerships within the same territory. Products are supports in services that are constantly evolving; complexity lies in the set of products and services that are combined in varied and personalized solutions.

The technologies that support this retransformation industry and service organization play a key role in the expansion of this new industry and are expected to grow significantly. Information and communication technologies (creating components, sensors, models, processing tools) are structuring, allowing greater reactivity and “controllability”. New uses of these technologies are being invented every day. This leap requires appropriate R&D developments (of processes, materials, management of material and energy flows and fluids). New economic processes, more adapted to small series and sustainable development, must be designed and implemented. An important issue concerns the performance of products, which must be ensured despite the high variability (of production, specifications, etc.).

This new paradigm of retransformation requires the development of methods and models, but also design tools and production systems for these new products, in a multidisciplinary and multi-scale approach, with material-energy-information-knowledge integration, and of symbiosis/intelligent human–system interface. This approach and the consideration of multiphysical couplings correspond to one of the difficulties of PE because the industry involves phenomena of very different spatial and temporal scales. This approach consists of simulating each phenomenon in the most relevant time and space scale, with the superposition of these scales aiming at a more global representation of the system, to predict the behavior of the system in a robust way. While the principle of this commitment is clearly expressed by actors in the field, it must be noted that we are only at the beginning of an operation that is essential for the development of PE.

• – Safety/security economy (clean and safe processes): the high demand for safety and clean production has become essential for a significant part of the population. It encompasses very different and complementary points of view (Clift 1995; Johns 1996; André et al. 1997; Pittet et al. 2006; Griffin 2014), while requiring manufacturers to comply with existing (or anticipate forthcoming) regulations¹. The safety of installations and occupational health and safety still raise high and non-negotiable expectations; these two themes can no longer be neglected. Security also calls for everyone to have a place in society, which is seen through the entry into a “social contract” binding all actors in the industrial system, but also through the entry of an inclusive society with the vulnerability of populations. Producing in a world where you feel safe is therefore a pressing issue. Table 5.1 outlines some elements to consider in addressing these challenges. It should be noted that the overall management of waste can be advantageously replaced by more specific and local operations located at each stage of the process.

Among the possible missions related to a new form of technological and social innovation that could be addressed, it could be advantageous to:

• – consider the situation of production activity and the prevention of risks that is available to us as it is, as it is experienced (sociology and perception), how it is felt by those who “make it”, without seeking to define an ideal theoretical framework as a starting point, but aiming for progress;
• – substitute the collection of facts for general ideas (or even received ideas) in a context of measurable neutrality: this involves, for example, current practices that are dealt with on the margins by most prevention actors, because they are researching outside the “mold” offered by causality;
• – equip and instrument good ideas; these can be reinforced by a body of experts who validate the approach, cross-reference ideas, and provide added value. These experts should help to provide theoretical support for approaches from the “field”. They can help to strengthen one’s own convictions by adjusting reasoning and methodologies and by stimulating the field;
• – start slowly, while organizing the experience as a continuous learning loop (sharing experience and feedback);
• – evaluate the effects of the transformation through a basis of assessment previously negotiated with stakeholders (the company, the employees, the environment). This context makes it possible to debate the approaches that allow progress; it is based on a new form of elaboration of a collective intelligence, far from a unifying form of scientific thought, but with reductive experience.
• – Industrial symbiosis: this is a recent phenomenon corresponding to an environmental and resource network (originated in Kalundborg, between four Danish companies and a local authority). The idea is to save resources and create an environmental benefit by integrating activities (Christenbsen 2001).
• – Economics of functionality: the use or the service provided becomes more and more favored with the possession of the good. Consumer demand thus evolves from possession to the satisfaction of a more personal and realistic need, which can, under certain conditions, significantly reduce material and energy flows, as companies seek to provide products that are sustainable, easy to maintain and consume less energy (ADEME 2017c; Zacklad 2007). At the same time, more and more companies are charging for their services on a per-use basis and through subscriptions to different types of services. The economy of functionality has entered a significant part of the economy, going from capital goods to consumer products (see product engineering). It requires a certain sustainability in customer-supplier relationships en masse, fairly standardized products, and has effects on employment (Farrugia et al. 2018). Table 5.2 (2010 Economic Outlook) presents the advantages and disadvantages of the economics of functionality.

• – Personalization (individualization) of products and production methods: for a long time, production and industry were reserved for a few specialists who had built a world which it was difficult to enter. The opening of industry towards society upset the stakeholders of industrial systems by introducing non-technicians who were just as legitimate as technicians in decision-making. Users thus wish to be involved in the design of these products. In addition, it is essential to design “differentiating” technologies, that is, technologies that allow the manufacture of customized products, and thus give an industrial advantage and meet the need for social progress. According to André (2019a), there was a time when innovation was thought of as a vertical process (for example, cars bought until the beginning of the 21st Century). This system did not take the end-user that much into account at the time of purchase (with just a few possibilities) during the time-consuming design. However, it is they who regulate or will regulate the life of companies today with their opinion as the starting point for a personalized production operation, made agile and flexible.

According to Deloitte (2015): “To be agile, the company must work on three of its main pillars at the same time: its business model, its human capital and its technological assets. The business operating model must be adapted in its fundamentals: agility transforms the company’s processes, practices, organization and governance.”

In this context, agility is the ability to foster and respond to change in order to best adapt to a turbulent environment. It is a combination of flexibility, for expected changes, and adaptability, for unexpected changes.

Deloitte Digital (2015) indicates the technological areas that can be qualified as “agile”; Figure 5.2 highlights different effects depending on the technological areas, high dynamics for energy, lower for materials. This is enough to avoid going too fast in the effort to change and evolve towards new horizons.

Figure 5.3, taking the example of what artificial intelligence now allows, illustrates the user’s influence in the design of their product (see Dario 2017; Knack 2017; IFRI 2018b; Tinant 2018; WEF 2018). However, apart from additive manufacturing, which is more a product innovation, and whose current mission is centered on personalization, it is not possible to consider this field as a carrier for the “classic” PE, because of the material structure of material and energy transformation processes.

In contrast, new publications in product engineering in personalized medicine speak of the manufacture of specialized and patient-friendly drugs (see Doney 2016; Akmal et al. 2018).

• – Smart production technologies: these are sources of significant added value and allow for the differentiation of products and productive organizations. It is a question of mastering the technology itself but also of having the most efficient design and implementation methods. Intelligence is conveyed by the products themselves and through interaction with the user. Scientific expectations are mainly in the improvement of advanced multi-physical, multi-scale (Castiglione et al. 2008), multi-technologies, multi-location models necessary for smart systems, and in the development of advanced knowledge management and augmented reality systems that integrate these models with the most efficient interaction technologies and practices.
• – Silver economy (including health): the French population aged over 60 will rise from 15 million today to 20 million in 2030. This demographic transition has new needs and requires new services (Bran et al. 2016; Kolomijecs 2018; OSTP 2019). “The law of 28 December 2015, relating to the adaptation of society to ageing, temporarily closes a significant legislative structure. According to its explanatory statement, it is intended to ‘enable everyone to enjoy the greatest possible social, economic and health benefits and for as long as possible from this tremendous progress’, namely an increase in life expectancy. It makes the adaptation of society to ageing ‘a national imperative and a priority of all the Nation’s public policies’” (Grand 2016). According to BPI (2016), this is a rapidly growing market, as shown in Figure 5.4.

The question asked by Michèle Debonneuil (2007) is to know if we persevere in the exploration of a system of material or immaterial mass-production (quantitative) or if we engage in what she calls “the revolution of the quaternary”, towards qualitative aspects, which are personalized, corresponding to new products, services or systems that satisfy an increased demand for “well-being” being put on the market, for which we agree to pay a certain price (the notion of attractiveness) and not the lowest price or prioritizing faster production (Romer 1994). There are new challenges to be overcome. Among the structuring and important factors to consider is the place of “baby boomers” in our changing society (Foot 1996, 2005; Déoux and Baillard 1997). Indeed, in large numbers, they have the time and money, even if their ability to master certain innovations is sometimes considered modest. They have a high level of education and are aware of emerging environmental issues. However, it is now recognized that, in general, it is not marketing exercises that make individuals interested in a product, but the intrinsic needs of people that creates effective demand. Thus, the profile of the population has a crucial importance on the choices made, leading the other components of the social body into the dynamics of production or services created. This means that the timely arrival of a new service is explained by the presence of a population ready to take it on, to use it to achieve at least part of their objectives. This reality, linked to the construction of a civilization of futility (Anders 2002; Lambert 2005) and of fragility (Gras 2003; Blamont 2004), partly undermines Debord’s writing, published in 1960 (2006): “capitalist consumption imposes a general reduction of desires by its regular satisfaction of artificial needs, which remain needs without ever having been desires”.

• – Nutrition and health economics: the food of the future is a real environmental challenge, a humanitarian objective and a scientific gamble. Faced with the need for new responsible production methods and a better distribution of resources, not to mention competition between agricultural areas for food and agricultural areas for energy, new consumption habits and alternative foods, of animal, vegetable or mineral origin, must be invented. Some of these foods must undergo processing in order to be accepted by consumers, but also to eliminate certain toxic constituents and improve their organoleptic, nutritional and health qualities (prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancers). Processing also reduces post-harvest losses, increases shelf life, reduces energy consumption (cold chain, packaging), diversifies uses and adds value to the product. Processing procedures thus need to be considerably improved to enhance the value of all products for food and health applications (with new molecules) while minimizing the impact of technological treatments on the bioavailability of biomolecules in final products.

5.2. Methodological development and paradigms

In this first phase (which should lead to significantly deeper understanding), a number of working themes are discussed, as presented below:

• – reverse engineering: how, starting from the application of use (functionality), do we go back to the physical, chemical, physico-chemical, biological properties, then to the manufacturing process of the product, the material?
• – scale change (and integration of scales and couplings);
• – multi-scale analysis;
• – Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA); process coupling;
• – modeling;
• – data mass (Big Data, Data Mining); information processing;
• – “terotechnology” or the science of aging systems;
• – self-adaptive systems; etc.

5.3. Challenges and innovations

A number of new themes were also raised. They are a starting point for further work:

• – hidden chemistry (home automation: photo booths, 3D/4D printers, washing machines without hazardous products, etc.);
• – clean processes for the environment. Many areas are targeted:
  • - in hospitals (Salamon, cited by Capmas-Delarue 2019), multi-resistant germs are increasingly present; they can pose therapeutic problems, contaminating patients who are already weakened. This is the case for staphylococci or candida auris, for example. Some germs can also be found outside hospitals, such as shigella, salmonella or gonococcus,
  • - in chemical production or waste disposal centers for which collective (if not individual) protection against antibiotic-resistant infectious agents must be developed for operators (Medisite 2005), but also methods for treating gaseous and liquid effluents,
  • - Das and Horton (2018) recall that adverse effects on human health, the environment and the planet have been neglected by both governments and the international technology development community. Pollution is the leading environmental cause of disease and death in the world today, accounting for about 9 million premature deaths in 2015. Addressing this problem is therefore crucial;
• – processes related to climate change: climate change can lead to changes in the spectrum of diseases affecting humans. For example, increases in water and air temperatures can lead to changes in the nature of germs and bacteria that are increasingly difficult to treat chemically. One problem is that some pathogens will develop or migrate to still healthy areas, another is that treatment processes will need to be modified to take into account pest resistance (as diseases that had disappeared in the West begin to return to Europe). In addition, vector-borne diseases such as malaria, zika, dengue fever and chikungunya are on the rise and are reaching the south of the continent. According to Salamon (cited by Capmas-Delarue 2019), “the tiger mosquito, which can transmit several of these diseases, has already begun to colonize France: it can be found in 51 départements (regions of France). Very recently, 18 cases of dengue fever have been confirmed in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and one case in Lot-et-Garonne”. It is therefore necessary to develop water, air and soil treatment processes that are effective in the long term;
• – individualization of products requiring a manufacturing method that can manage a large variability of products (flexibility) with a high production rate on site and on demand. Individualized processes (see additive manufacturing);
• – process engineering, miniaturized and applied to home automation, health, environment and analytics, nutrition and nanotechnologies;
• – integration and transition to biotechnological processes (substitution of chemical processes), soft chemistry. De Brabandère (2017a) reminds us that “no idea is born good: it is a new hypothesis, which can perhaps become so. Oil, for example: for 40 years, we confined ourselves to burning it, as if its sole purpose was to replace coal. It took a real mental revolution to find its other uses, which blew up oil”;
• – reconcile complex products (customized with high variability, composites, blends) and recycling: problem of sorting, chain creation (profitability), etc.;
• – products with a second life: design products, materials that allow a second life after an appropriate treatment (such as the retreading of tires, the introduction of components from the start, which will allow this second life). Design the appropriate transformation processes (which transformation and reconditioning processes). Products without separation (bioleaching to make complex metallic organic acids?), etc.;
• – smart materials and products: the interest and use of ICT in processes by developing work on informed matter (André 2018a, 2018b, 2018c), on smart products and materials such as designing and producing smart products based on developments in computing and sensors, require a new understanding of products and production models to meet societal challenges. A meta-product (smart and customizable, highly customer-focused, with functionality configured by end-users and sharing information distributed in the Cloud) leads to a paradigm shift. This leads to a fundamental change in product lifecycle needs and opens perspectives towards agile and user-oriented production models, with a significant impact on cost-effectiveness and ecology. This applies to personal clothing as well as production and support robots. Design, component selection, material and sensor procurement, virtual prototyping, as well as production planning and service integration become highly collaborative processes, requiring interdisciplinary expertise (designers, sensor producers, software developers, users, trainers and physicians, among others). The integration of digital technologies into the material and the informed and communicating products (branding and features) opens up important perspectives to allow the products a second life, recycling, identification, sorting (example: grafting of marker molecules for easier separation later on);
• – the societal impact of modeling and data exchange: the product intelligence paradigm requires, in particular, modeling “perception-cognition-action” interactions as a whole between two objects of a different nature and supporting all levels of interaction, from modeling and numerical simulation to physical realization and testing. This results in the management of complex flows of behavioral, sensory and interaction data. How can the system take into account the desirability or simply the social acceptability of data tracking (the Big Brother effect)? How can we empower citizens to make choices that respect their individual and social values? All these developments must converge towards augmented reality, intelligent and virtual reality uses and technologies best suited to support engineering work. The scientific obstacles to this optimal knowledge management are mainly of two kinds. Traceability mechanisms that can support both the changing careers of professionals and the re-composition of companies or collaborations are to be defined, such as those allowing the management of end-of-life information, maintenance and product redesign;
• – how can the system take into account desirability or simply acceptability? Reflection on the factory of the future and knowledge engineering;
• – the empowerment of citizens is reflected, in particular, in the willingness to make choices that respect the individual and social values of each individual;
• – but also for processes: remote communication, supply management, energy management, network management, etc.

5.4. Possible science behind the application

The most in-depth research possible is the focus of researchers, without first considering possible applications. Unlike what was presented in the previous section, this is about developing new concepts. Among the first elements of the reflection on the development of scientific knowledge are the following:

• – separation of mixtures and complex products: making ultra-clean, treating ultra-diluted products (water and emerging air pollutants);
• – new catalysts (chemical and enzymatic and biological, photocatalysis);
• – mathematical methods for multi-criteria analysis and management (?); uncertainty management (fuzzy mathematics);
• – process flexibility (dedicated and adaptive processes); variability of energy flows;
• – thermodynamics equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium (kinetics) of complex media (physics of soft matter);
• – measurements and quantifications of metabolic flows;
• – 3D and 4D printing, etc.

What can we learn from these lists of apparently disjointed objectives? Are there elements that should constitute the pillars of PE development, characteristic elements of its scientific legitimacy, open to society? These elements should be further developed by groups of specialists from PE and the disciplines that contribute to its development. However, on the basis of the descriptions presented in this chapter, which were essentially validated by a group of experts in 2014 (André et al. 2014), it is possible to consider that this wide collection of possibilities is a reasonable range.