How Can a Technological System be Understood and Analyzed

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How Can a Technological System be Understood and Analyzed?

1.1. Introduction

Understanding the contemporary technological system does not simply involve a factual description of technologies, technical objects, products and services, but an understanding of this aggregate as an organized system. The technological approach as a system is built on the principle that the technological universe, this portion of human activity consisting of the appropriation of the laws of nature to transform nature and society, can be analyzed as an aggregate of specific laws of composition and evolution, forming an order and an organization, and further generating momentum and dynamics. This form has existed in the entire history of human technology, which allows it to be exposed as a succession of technological macrosystems, having their specific characteristics and specific evolutionary laws for a given historical period. The purpose of this chapter is to show what the foundations and the characteristics of an in system approach are and how it has made it possible to explain, in an orderly manner, the succession of historic technological systems up to the contemporary system. We will then focus the presentation on the technological dynamic and on the instruments used for the analysis of the movement of the technological system, i.e. the innovation momentum.

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2 The Ongoing Technological System

The concept of a technological system thus appears as an operative concept, which is useful for interpreting the contemporary technological movement in its entirety. Such an approach will provide us with the tools to understand the structure of our technological universe and the technological evolution that we are currently experiencing.

1.2. The construction of technology analysis models in systems

Physical “objects” and activities in which technology specifically crystallizes, namely material objects such as tools, machinery, diverse consumer objects and intangible objects such as expertise and technical language are not elements isolated from one another. They form an order, within the different meanings of this word; they are inter-related and united, “forming a system”. This system, even though it maintains strong relationships with other spheres of social system, possesses autonomy, by means of the specificity of its composition and evolutionary laws [GIL 78]. Technology generates, due to this autonomy, dynamics of motion and change, the main component of technological innovation is driven by the permanent recomposition of technical and technological systems.

1.2.1. The ontological approach of the technological system, a vision of structure

The theory of technological systems is based on the idea that technology, at any level whatsoever, is organized into structured aggregates whose elements are interconnected and interactive. The founding proposal is thus expressed by Bertrand Gille: “It amounts to also state that, ultimately as a very general rule, all techniques are, to varying degrees, dependent on each other and that a certain consistency is necessarily needed between them … This aggregate of consistencies at the different levels of all structures, of all aggregates, and all constituent parts comprises what can be called a technical system” [GIL 78, p. 19].

The technological system is always an ordered aggregation of interconnected and interdependent technologies, a multilevel hierarchical system. Unitary technologies are aggregated into technical sets of increasing complexity that have their functional unity and architectural order. The technological system can thus be seen as a system of systems.

How Can a Technological System be Understood and Analyzed? 3

It can nevertheless be observed that this system-wide organization includes two types of elements and relationships: a system of technical systems and a hierarchized organization of technological understanding, knowledge and applications.

1.2.1.1. The technological system as an organized aggregate of technical systems

A technological system can be represented as an organization of subsystems as the real operating and even physical systems, which we can call technical systems, have an organic structure with strong interactions based on real flows of matter, energy and information.

1.2.1.1.1. The structuring unit: the unitary technical principle B. Gille, who undertook this technological separation, states that the most

basic technical unit, the technical process, physically implemented in the tool, is already a combination of physical actions, at least, the mandatory energy–matter pair or rather the matter–energy–information triple.

1.2.1.1.2. The organization of technical aggregates of increasing complexity

These technical units will be integrated into technical combinations which have increasing levels of complexity, which Gille calls technical structures, technical aggregates and technical sectors.

Technical devices (which Gille [GIL 78] calls “technical aggregate”) are technical systems, which are combinations of several technical processes, implemented by humans and organized by specific knowledge and information systems to carry out a complex transformation operation of matter or a complex functionality. The example of production blast furnace smelting, although seemingly elementary, shows the level of complexity attained. This is a case where a technical device is located in the production, hence a factory, for example, is a technical device such as a sector.

The level of aggregation and complexity is thus variable; it is not the point here to more precisely distinguish between the different possible levels of a technical device.


Figure 1.1. An example of a technical aggregate: the blast furnace B. Gille [GIL 79]

These technical aggregates can reach the size and complexity level of technical networking macrosystems and constitute technological aggregates which are often heterogeneous in terms of the skills implemented and often based on informational networks. We will thus refer to the latter as technical systems. Electrical systems studied by Hughes [HUG 83], transport systems, in particular rail systems, and especially nowadays the world wide web are illustrations of them. They represent specific objects of study because of their relative functional unity, despite their technical heterogeneity and their very large interdependence, thus turning them into concrete coherence vectors of the technological system as a whole.

All these systems have a specific organization, an architecture (they always have an organization within the sense of systems). All these systems are finalized in the sense that they perform functions. They can be represented as systems of functions.

1.2.1.2. The macro technological system, the supreme instance of technological organization

The superior form of system, which Gille calls “technical system” and which we prefer to designate technological system to differentiate it from


concrete technical systems, represents an abstract hierarchical organization of all systems comprising it, a system of a more general level and order, a meta-system with more abstract links and interactions. Technological macrosystems such as global, national and branch technological systems, or even that of a technological field, come under this category.

Nonetheless, moving to this level introduces a rupture which consists of the idea that all the previous levels organize real and concrete technical systems, whereas the technological macrosystem is an assembly of more abstract relationships between technological levels. The purpose of the technological macrosystem is to formalize the entire structure of technologies and their relationships at the level of a given society and to build historical periodizations [GRA 97].

1.2.1.2.1. An informational and cognitive hierarchical organization Not all technologies have the same significance with respect to the

influence that they exert on the aggregate system. This makes it possible to bring forward the idea of a hierarchy between technological levels in the system, according to their impact on the coherence of the whole.

Today, it is established that this hierarchy ought to be addressed in the form of a conceptual distinction between three major types of technologies: generic technologies, application technologies and products, and end usage technologies.

Generic technologies are the technologies that implement a great transformation mode of matter. They are materialized in the form of scientific concepts and principles or those related to science. Their unity is based on the main process implemented, the material transformed or the general function taken into account, they are not specific to a particular product–market line. Generic technologies can be classified as, for example: electronic information processing technology, hydrocarbon chemistry and fermentation engineering. They assume a concrete existence by means of large sets of technical processes unified under a single concept (this categorization has a closeness with the notion of technological paradigm [DOS 82]).


As a result, generic technologies have, due to their higher degree of generality, a wider network of interrelations and therefore a more massive influence over the aggregate system.

1.2.1.2.2. Representation of technological hierarchy in the contemporary technological system

Application technologies: these generic technologies radiate and are broken down into groups of particular technological applications, in the form of processes and transformation mechanisms that will combine into industrial applications of technical systems and products, to the point of fine adaptation to a product–market couple. This then corresponds to the third type of technology which is located a long way downstream from the system and is responsible for solving more focused application problems.

1.2.1.2.3. Technical system – technological macrosystem: a conceptual continuum

Despite the difference in perspective of the analysis expressed above, all of the division or aggregation levels that we have described are governed by a principle of continuity. Fundamental invariants of composition and motion of artifacts (interdependence, coherence, self-saturated growth, etc.) are the same, regardless of the level of scale and aggregation. It is certainly necessary to produce the composition laws specific to each scaling level but in the context of the general invariants of this type of system.

Here, we come across one of the foundations of technological systems, that of the additivity of systems or their fractal composition.

1.2.2. Interdependence and technological coherence: the systemic principle of dynamics of technological systems

Furthermore, the network of interdependencies that merges and operates technical and technological systems generates a plurality of interdependencies [GIL 78, ROS 82].

1.2.2.1. Quantitative and qualitative interdependencies Interdependency can be broken down; it is both quantitative and

qualitative and may represent a combination of the following two links:

– Link between qualities: “the work of a given material requires tools of a given quality”. For instance, underwater work in deep waters, in order to


achieve the necessary communication between the surface and the divers, requires control of the respiratory physiology and gas mixtures in addition to the application of a signal processing technique capable of correcting the acoustic distortions introduced by great depths.

– Link between quantities: it relates to the connections between physical characteristics, yields and sizes in particular, to illustrate an old but well-known example, the power of steam engines depends on the pressure level of boilers, which itself depends on the resistance of the materials that they are made of.

However, there is also interaction between quantity and quality, the production of given quantities requires a specific quality of the instruments destined to implement it. There are many examples of this type of cohesion throughout the 18th and part of the 19th Century, for example the dialectic between machine powers and the nature of metals needed to transmit increasingly more powerful motions.

1.2.2.2. Intra-technology and inter- technology interdependency Interdependency also takes place, in a kind of a dynamic system based on

Forrester’s work [FOR 61], by means of feedback loops of various orders inside a technological field itself, this is intra-technology interdependency, between the different stages or different components of an aggregate or a branch. Let us consider the example of the evolution of electronic components where technical advances depend on the fine understanding of their architecture, itself depending on computational and computer-aided design, which itself depends on the power of its components.

This interdependence takes place between the technical fields that converge to form technical aggregates, for example, between materials and energy, we will call it inter-technology interdependence. This technological interdependence may concern techniques dedicated to a given system, between container and content for example, between power generator and transmission organ.

This is however not always the case. Through the interaction of cross-cutting technologies, the interdependency of qualities and quantities takes place between apparently independent techniques, which may not have specific relationships between them. These cross-cutting or horizontal techniques are those that are present in most technical systems without being specific to any one of them: the gear and the piston, for example, power supply systems and, today, electronic components and software programs.


Generalized to the whole system and interfaced with most of the other techniques, they contribute to disseminating a unifying system standard. Energy systems are particularly important in this regard to the extent that attempts at periodization of the technological systems have often been based on the name of the dominant energy in a given system (Mumford’s classification [MUM 65]). These coherences are not only linear but also comprise feedback and cross-cutting actions.

A technological system tends to form a cohesive whole.

It is important to distinguish between interdependence and coherence. Interdependence is what we might call the interaction and solidarity processor between techniques. The set of all of these interdependencies tends to generate a set of local coherences which tend toward a general coherence of the system. Coherence is the required common level of characteristics and performances of all the techniques for harmonious operation and development of the technological system.

This implies that the level of maturity of a technological system can be defined by the extent of the space governed by this coherence. A mature technological system is a system in which all of the characteristics and levels of performance of the various techniques are coherent, with the exception of a few technical “isolates”. “These links can be established only if a level common to all of the techniques can be achieved, even if, marginally, the level of some techniques, more independent with regard to others, is maintained below or above the general level” [GIL 78, p. 19].

Coherence is thus a product of the interaction of interdependencies which tends to achieve harmonization between technical performance levels and qualitative characteristics. It is therefore also a condition since interdependencies can be established only with the condition that there exists a minimum compatibility of the convergent elements. This also explains that different technological systems, historically dated, could have been defined by a set of consistent performances such as: accuracy of the material transformation (millimeter, micron, etc.), precision of the measurement of time required for the speed of transformation (from the hour in Roman times to the nanosecond today) and adaptive variety of materials.

The interplay of interdependencies in the search for this consistency generates a motion because the trend will be to fine-tune technologies with each other to the greatest possible extent, as shown in the very elaborated text by Tinland who defined technology as a “complex and coherent


aggregate of objects, skills, representations”. He states, “Whether therefore referring to a technical-type evolution through the successive forms of the same ‘lineage’ of tools or relationships that unite material objects, revenues, production or usage standards, awareness of requirements, etc., the technical sphere contributes in every way with evolutionary pressures and internal regulations that confer it with a wide autonomy” [TIN 90, p. 106].

A technology progressing more rapidly at a point, or another being instead blocked, is sufficient to bring about a motion of “seismic” readjustment. Hughes has formalized this phenomenon with the notion of reverse salient [HUG 87], as has Sahal in his analysis of the differential growth of technical components of a technical or technological system [SAH 81], which can gradually affect the entire system. The location where such a rupture occurs is not indifferent, and if such a movement applies to generic technologies, this rupture can cause a major technological crisis: the rupture of a technological system rupture that some call a “Technological revolution”.

1.3. The representation of the movement: the technological lifecycle, the discontinuity of the technical movement

1.3.1. The technological lifecycle

The technological lifecycle is based on the idea that every technology has a limited development space. A new technology often arises from the inability of a previous technology to satisfy an increasing function, it grows with an increase in performance over time, until it meets a limit where: “…no growth is possible: dimensions, performance, costs, each necessarily related to others imposes a limit that it is unthinkable to cross” [GIL 78, p. 33]. It is this notion of technological limit that accounts for disruptive innovations, which we refer to further on as substitutions, and technological crises at different levels of the system. The technological lifecycle will make it possible to describe organization and form invariants of technical systems, according to their degree of maturity. In general, four phases of the lifecycle can be distinguished: emergence, growth, maturity and limits [FOS 86]. The limit of a technology resides in the exhaustion of the potential of progress that is reflected by the principle of matter transformation which mainly animates it. It can be met due to external limitations, such as a shortage of raw materials [ROS 76].


This limit is a system limit of the self-saturation type, the limit of a technical principle will cause interaction by the complete saturation of the system.

1.3.2. The formalisms of the lifecycle: the S-curve

1.3.2.1. Technological momentum and S-curve Empirical studies have shown that when the time series of the

performance of a technical system is graphically represented, a sigmoidal curve is obtained, which corresponds to the logistic curve known as the S-curve [GIL 78, SAH 81]. This is the regular shape of the rhythm of occupation by a technique that we call technological expansion space. This curve is a formalization of a self-saturation process [BER 73].

The problem then lies in its effective construction, which presupposes the refinement of the evolutionary model of the technical system under consideration, its determinants and also the forms of insertion of this technical system in the global technological movement.

Figure 1.2. The evolution of the performance of a technology over time [AÏT 02]


1.3.2.2. Technological substitution modeling The saturated technical system will see the emergence of a set of

concurring techniques likely to exceed the boundary that it cannot overcome. Several technical principles are generally candidates for this substitution. Often a single technique reaches the substitution, sometimes several. These will be involved in the technical proliferation of the following emerging phase.

The curve below shows how this saturation process generally creates a process of technological substitution.

Figure 1.3. Technological substitution after saturation of a technical system [AÏT 02]

1.3.3. The conditional stability of the S-curve: interaction between the individual lifecycle and the global technology movement

Because of its regularity observable in most techniques, these successions of phases have been called the “technological lifecycle”; this designates the lifecycle of an isolated technical system. In order to account for its dynamics


of evolution, it must be inserted into the dynamics of the technological macrosystem in which it is found, along with the potentialities and constraints that this environment generates [AÏT 02].

When it reaches its boundaries, it is possible that a technology may see these limits be shifted and experience a new lease of life because technological breakthroughs in other areas of the technological macrosystem will have changed some of its central conditions for evolution. The consequence is that the S-curve is stable only in a stable technological environment. Conversely, in a technological system in transition, all unit S-curves are likely to be modified. The validity limit of the S-curve results from the reasoning “all things being equal”, that is to say that this technological path will be all the more stable as the global technological environment is stable.

This resorting to “doping” the S-curve cannot be performed in the top level of a technological macrosystem, because generic technologies at their limits cannot undergo technical doping. Technological system theory thus provides us with a basis for understanding crisis as a technological revolution. This relates to a blockage of a number of generic technologies, which has generated a crisis in the whole technological system, which had in turn fed one hundred years of development and contributed to the development of a new technology system based on a set of other generic technologies, so-called “new technologies”.

1.4. Model for the internal restructuring of technology systems by means of the three components: technique–architecture–function

1.4.1. A formalization of the technical system components: the technique–architecture–function articulation

The technical system (or the macro technological system) is analyzed as a reality that can be read from three articulated levels:

– The technical system as an ordered and inter-connected function space.

This is a form of reading the interaction and coherence that we mentioned previously. This form of representation expresses the logical network of requirements exclusively in terms of what all the technical system levels and


operators do. This approach provides a theoretical status to functional analysis and a fairly considerable universalization of its field.

– The system technology as a coherent space of technical processes.

Figure 1.4. Graphical representation of the process– function–architecture interaction model [ABE 88]

This is the most technical reading of the technical system, the analysis of the way in which to perform functions. The functions of a given system can be realized only because it controls certain types of means of control of nature. These processes may be different to control the same function, especially when they must do so in different conditions and contexts.

– The technical system as an architecture of architectures.

The execution of these functions by given processes is not carried out in a direct way due to the combined nature of the processes for the realization of a function. In all the cases, it involves specific and stable process combinatorials that are commonly referred to as technical architectures. According to their level of complexity, these architectures are organized into architectures of architectures.


The technical architecture is a strictly technological dimension which is often forgotten in favor of the process; perhaps it is the most technological, because it constitutes the central link of the technological order.

This system construction structure is also a factor of movement since the technological movement will take place on the articulation and the harmonization of the three levels, as has been analyzed by G. Simondon in his process of “realization of the technical object” [SIM 59].

1.4.2. The dynamics of interaction by the function–architecture–principle relation

1.4.2.1. From the stimulation of the function to the readjustment of the functional architecture

The interaction between the performance growth, made possible by the field of technological potentials, and the growth of social expectations have contributed to increasing the main function of a technical system in terms of scale, diversity and precision. The laser, for instance, was originally developed as a measuring tool and has gradually extended its functional space (cutting, dental care, welding, etc.).

This change, which induces a positive imbalance, is reflected within the technical system, by forcing a large part of the intermediate functions to evolve in turn.

However, as has been analyzed by Simondon, this evolution of the functions of the technical system does not happen in a homothetic way, it comprises a phenomenon of rearrangement of the functional architecture by means of decomposing secondary functions, to better adapt itself to the principal function.

1.4.2.2. Recomposition of the functional architecture and recomposition of the technological architecture

Designers of technical systems are then faced with a double requirement, on the one, to respond to the need for increased levels of functional performance, and on the other, to adapt the technological architecture to the functional restructuring that accompanies it. Due to proximity, and with coherence in mind, this forces all technical components to


evolve. Thus, the emergence of the airplane technical system, and even more generally of artificial flight, if it has generated new usage functionality, has in the course of the growth of this function created new technical functions such as the necessary measurement of altitude, then the function of automatic piloting as well as the function for flight without visibility.

This modification will stabilize if existing techniques are able to respond to these changes. If they reach boundaries which do not allow them to respond to increases in demand or to integrate into the new architecture, this induces a blockage of the system’s evolution. This then creates a situation in which new technical principles appear and which, because of their potential surplus or new requirement for compatibility, will restart the process of motion (which may well not happen, causing “isolates” of technology locked inside a technological macrosystem in evolution).

As a result, this general growth, brought about by the functional system, not only causes the technical system performance to increase but also its complexity and diversity.

This crossing between the logic of growth of technical systems in their expansion space and the logic of functional–architectural–technical restructuring represents the main foundations where the understanding and modeling of technological dynamics can be built upon.

1.4.3. Technological systems, waves of innovation and technological revolutions

The diffusion of progress in certain technologies in the system, such as the limits of some of them being exceeded, generates a permanent innovation momentum. Depending on the importance of the generic technologies involved in the process, this innovation movement will lead to more or less intense waves of innovation of greater or lesser magnitude.

We shall thus see, concerning the contemporary technological system, that it has been carried by two successive waves of innovation. The first was brought about by the “microelectronic revolution” and the second by a current of technological convergence initiated by a generalized digital movement.


The large-scale transformation, the so-called technological revolution, of which several instances were known to appear around 1780, 1875 and 1975, is the replacement of a technological system by another and the replacement of previous generic technologies, having reached their limits, with new generic technologies, structuring and carrying this new system.

1.4.4. Dynamics of the technological system and social system

The technological dynamics generated by the structure and dynamics of a technological system requires the development of the specific productive, economic and social organization that surrounds it. The technological evolution creates organizational needs to manage and regulate the scale effects induced by innovations. Such is the case of the industrial organization of “big industry”, shaped by the technological capabilities required to provide the mass production emerging in the 2nd industrial technological system. This organizational harmonization can relate to the need for institutions that will be responsible for the new activities generated by the technological evolution. Let us quote, for example, training institutions generated by the need for skills in the implementation of technology that has become more scientific, particularly with the developments of electricity, chemistry and mechanics. This institutional development manifested itself through the creation of engineering schools, and also through the generalization of primary education in all of the industrialized world by the end of the 19th Century; the objective of this institutional creation was to provide basic knowledge and also the types of behavior expected from the workers of the new industrial forms. A similar development can be mentioned in the evolution of research with its systematization and institutionalization in business, with the creation of the new concept of research center by the end of the 19th Century. In other cases, it is the development of a new technology that will allow for the emergence and the development of a new form of organization made necessary by the complexity or the scale that the developing technological system generates. The clearest example of this interaction is that of the generalization of electricity supply in factories, around the 1920s, which created the condition (the freedom of positioning machines inside the industrial space) for the creation of methods for the so-called “scientific organization of work”. We will come across these transformations or organizational innovations, generated in the contemporary technological system, later in the book.


Figure 1.5. Generalized model of the technological system in society

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How Can a Technological System be Understood and Analyzed