AFIS thesis prize for Elaheh MALEKI

Elaheh MALEKI defended her PhD thesis entitled "A semantic model based on systems engineering to support the life cycle of product-service systems", in 2018.
Her PhD supervisor was Alain BERNARD, and co-supervisor Farouk BELKADI - of the LS2N Laboratory.

The development process for product-service systems is highly collaborative and involves a wide variety of business actors and requires standardised semantic repositories to manage the multitude of business points of view. This thesis aimed to explore the potential of systems engineering in terms of modelling and management of complex systems as a conceptual foundation for representing all the different business viewpoints associated with the system life-cycle in an integrated way.

The thesis brought together two very complex scientific fields often belonging to different scientific communities: Product-Service Systems and Systems Engineering. Although the initial intention was to use systems engineering as a conceptual support for the modelling of PSSs, a significant contribution was made to systems engineering through a clarification and adaptation of certain key concepts (RFLP, support systems, modularity, life cycle, etc.) for their application on heterogeneous and multidisciplinary socio-technical systems. The approach was illustrated on a simplified case study (free cycling). Some proposals have been demonstrated in a pragmatic way in the framework of the European project (ICP4Life) through a complete ontology supporting the central knowledge base of the platform.

The AFIS (Association Française d'Ingénierie Système) held its Forum Académie / Industrie AFIS 2020 on 9 and 10 December 2020. This Forum is, among other things, an opportunity to award a prize ranging from €500 to €1500 to outstanding theses related to Systems Engineering, defended between September 2018 and September 2020, and with significant industrial spin-off.