Obsolescence and Optimized Resilience Engineering – i-OREO

Obsolescence is the process by which systems, components or techniques become obsolete, overtaken by more advanced versions. Affecting fields as diverse as electronics, mechanics and chemistry, it poses a major challenge in terms of operational unavailability, requiring proactive management to mitigate its impact. Resilience, or the ability of a system to withstand obsolescence, is crucial, especially for Mission Critical Systems (MCS) used in defense, health or transport, aiming to maximize their availability despite obsolescence.
The Quartz laboratory (ISAE-Supméca) and the ABMI group, working together for almost two years (2022-2024), are studying the resilience of systems during their redesign. This cooperation, carried out under the project "Obsolescence et REsilience Optimisée" (Obsolescence and Optimized Resilience), known as OREO and funded by the France Relance program, has laid the foundations for an augmented reverse engineering methodology and the concept of a "resilience index". ABMI, an expert in multi-technology engineering, offers augmented reverse engineering solutions for redesigning systems affected by obsolescence to make them more efficient and resilient. The Quartz laboratory has developed several research areas relating to obsolescence management, particularly the redesign of systems using models derived from Systems Engineering.
Faced with obsolescence accelerated by rapid technological change, the search for innovative solutions to develop resilient systems is imperative.
As a continuation of this innovative research, and with a view to guaranteeing its continuity, the two partners are planning to set up a joint "Obsolescence and Optimized Resilience Engineering" laboratory, called i-OREO. Its aim is to create systems capable of rapidly overcoming and recovering from obsolescence-related situations, incorporating reliability and robustness criteria. The work focuses on three areas: augmented reverse engineering, resilience and proactive obsolescence management. Using a methodology rooted in scientific research to assess the resilience index of systems, i-OREO aims to respond to industrial challenges by proposing sustainable strategies for dealing with obsolescence.
-Augmented Reverse Engineering based on System Models, RAMSES. This approach goes beyond traditional reverse engineering techniques (1) by incorporating a proactive watch on patents about to become obsolete, (2) it includes the necessary and sufficient models for the re-design of multi-technology systems.
-Improving resilience. The project is also developing specific metrics to measure the resilience of reverse-engineered systems. These metrics will help to assess the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in terms of robustness and durability. The study of resilience exploits probabilistic models such as Bayesian networks, dependency graphs and bond graphs.
-Knowledge capitalization. A fundamental part of our approach is to systematize the knowledge acquired during reverse engineering. The methods and solutions developed will be compiled into knowledge models, which will serve as a basis for new customer projects. This data will enrich our ability to respond to future obsolescence problems more effectively, drawing on lessons learned and tested solutions.
Finally, to facilitate the practical application of the research and innovations generated by this project, we will develop an i-OREO platform dedicated to augmented reverse engineering. This platform will provide the tools needed to implement reverse engineering techniques, offering tangible support to companies and engineers faced with the obsolescence of their systems.