Value Analysis to Improve System Architecting

Abstract

Value Analysis (VA) is a collaborative method that could be used to make a decision in the early phase of complex projects. In this framework, Stakeholders are involved into the process of decisionmaking and project success is facilitated. Systeme Architechting (SA) is a set of processes used for the conceptual phase of the design of complex systems while System Engineering (SE) is the set of processes used for the design phase of the system. In complex projects, Stakeholders are multiple and carry specific technical, social and environmental expectations that define their perceived Value of the project. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that VA and SA are two complementary approaches to collect and analyse Stakeholder needs in a complex project. The article presents an analysis of the literature review on VA and SA / SE. Based on this analysis, an illustration case is proposed to show how to integrate VA into SA to understand the needs of Stakeholders. The article concludes that the two methods VA and SA can be combined to analyze and would allow following several dimensions of Value (economic, social and environmental) within a complex project.

The Doughnut as a Support of the “Sustainable Value Engineering”

“…According to us, sustainability is not just about protecting the environment: it is about taking into account the place of human beings in their environment. We will focus in our article on the social and environmental dimensions while considering the economic and technical dimension as largely supported by classic approaches such as Value Analysis (VA)/Value Engineering (VE) or System Engineering (SE) (de Graaf et al, 2019;Lalevée et al, 2021b). The interest in these phases comes from the fact that they have a strong impact on the entire life cycle of the system while having a limited commitment of resources.…”