PhD Proposal : Interactive and collaborative immersive environment for multi-criteria decision support in the design of complex industrial systems: application to the implementation of a Final Assembly Line - CDD 36 months

Global Information

This PhD will take place in the “Centre de génie industriel” at IMT Mines Albi (France)

·      Location: Albi, CGI https://cgi.imt-mines-albi.fr/

·      Expected start date: September or October 2026 depending on student availability

·      Keywords: Mixt Reality, Virtual Environment, Mutlicriteria Decision Making, Systems Engineering

Context

The design of assembly lines is a critical issue in industrial processes, with challenges at multiple levels (see references below): the integration of new technologies—from robotics to AI—to reduce and control operation times and improve the ergonomics of user interfaces; balancing the various workstations on the line and sizing technical requirements and human skills; information systems to ensure traceability and monitoring of flows; organizing and managing logistics to supply assembly stations; layout of the line in existing or new facilities; addressing flexibility needs (product mix, reconfigurability, schedules) and variabilities (in time, quality, or availability of assembly and logistics resources).

The project that funds this research project is led by an aeronautical manufacturer. It aims to design a final assembly line of aircrafts, considering the specificities of the aeronautics sector: large takt time, variability in the product mix, the size of the aircraft, which allows for multiple parallel work zones, dimensional diversity and the large number of components to manage,and the need for traceability of flows throughout the logistics chain, among others. Several PhD theses are being conducted in parallel, with the following topics, and will need to work synergistically:

•       Dynamic Balancing under uncertainties for aircraft final Assembly lines;

•       An immersive multi-user environment to assist in the layout of an assembly line within a building;

•       Heterogeneous Fleet Management for Resilient Intralogistics under Nominal and Exceptional Flows;

•       Evaluating the impacts of standardized, shared, and connected packaging to optimize the supply chain logistics for assembly lines.

Problem Statement

The design of complex industrial systems, such as Final Assembly Lines (FAL) in the aeronautics sector, involves multidisciplinary teams that must take collective decisions based on heterogeneous data: design data (CAD, digital mock-ups, configurations), project management data (schedules, resources, milestones, risks), and multi-criteria performance indicators.

These decision-making processes face three major challenges:

·      High cognitive complexity: stakeholders must simultaneously process large volumes of technical and organizational data.

·      Disciplinary heterogeneity: design engineers, project managers, industrialization managers, and customer representatives interact with different frameworks and disciplinary cultures.

·      Difficulty in understanding, explaining, and justifying decisions, particularly in trade-off situations where multiple conflicting criteria come into play.

Extended Reality (XR) technologies, including Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality, offer new opportunities to visualize, share, and discuss this data in an interactive, collaborative, and immersive environment. However, their potential to enhance the explicability of group decisions in a multi-criteria and multi-disciplinary context, especially in project management, remains underexplored.

The central objective of this thesis is to design and evaluate an interactive, collaborative, and immersive environment based on XR technologies, enabling multidisciplinary teams to:

1.     Jointly understand design and project management data for a complex industrial system.

2.     Discuss and argue design options within the group.

3.     Make informed collective decisions using a multi-criteria trade-off approach.

4.     Visualize and assess the impact of decisions on project performance criteria.

The primary application context is the implementation of a FAL, which combines challenges in industrial design, complex project management, and multi-actor coordination.

Main research questions:

·      QR1 – How can an XR environment be designed to simultaneously and coherently represent design data and project management data in the context of FAL implementation?

·      QR2 – To what extent can an XR environment improve the explicability of group decisions in a multi-criteria trade-off strategy?

·      QR3 – How can a collective, multi-disciplinary, and multi-criteria decision-making process be modeled and supported within such an environment, while ensuring traceability and justifiability of the choices made?

·      QR4 – What indicators and visualization mechanisms can make the impact of decisions on project performance criteria (deadlines, costs, risks, quality) visible in real time?

Scientific and technical challenges addressed in this thesis

The scientific challenges focus on the fundamental knowledge to be built or extended:

·      VS1 – Theory of collective decision explicability: To date, there is no unified theoretical framework for explicability applied to group decision-making (Group Decision Making). The thesis will need to propose a conceptual model of explicability in a collaborative, multi-criteria, and multi-actor context, taking into account collective cognitive biases and information asymmetries between disciplines.

·      VS2 – Modeling group compromise decisions under uncertainty: Existing multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods (AHP, ELECTRE, TOPSIS, etc.) are primarily designed for a single decision-maker or a priori aggregated preferences. Building a formalism for collective decision-making capable of handling heterogeneous preferences, evolving weights, subjective preferences, and partial uncertainty in the data represents a major theoretical challenge.

·      VS3 – Coupling spatial cognition and decision-making: The effect of immersion and spatial presence on cognitive processes of understanding, argumentation, and consensus is still poorly understood. In particular, there is no widely accepted visualization and/or interaction metaphor, unlike those in 2D tool development. The thesis will need to evaluate the relationship between immersive experience and decision quality (relevance, consensus, traceability), and lay the groundwork for future evaluation of the impact of chosen metaphors on decision quality.

·      VS4 – Semantic integration of heterogeneous data: Design data (digital mock-ups, configurations) and project management data (WBS, schedules, risks) rely on incompatible ontologies and representations. A scientific challenge involves constructing an integrative semantic model that enables cross-querying and reasoning within the immersive environment.

The technological challenges focus on the technical developments required to make the environment operational:

·      VT1 – Real-time synchronization of multi-source data in a multi-user and multi-platform immersive environment: Consistently and simultaneously updating XR representations for multiple remote or co-located users, potentially using different platforms (virtual reality, mixed reality, tablets, PCs, etc.), based on heterogeneous information systems (PLM, ERP, project tools), poses challenges in software architecture, latency, and access conflict management.

·      VT2 – Intelligent 3D representation of project management data: Translating abstract data (Gantt charts, WBS, risk matrices, progress indicators) into spatial and interactive representations that are comprehensible in an immersive context requires the development of original visualization metaphors adapted to XR.

·      VT3 – Natural interaction interfaces for collective decision-making in XR: Designing interfaces that allow non-XR specialists to annotate, vote, negotiate, and validate decisions intuitively in a shared immersive space is a specific human-machine interaction (HMI) challenge in the industrial context.

·      VT4 – Traceability and archiving of decisions in the XR environment: Capturing, structuring, and restoring the history of decisions made (exchanged arguments, accepted compromises, involved actors) in a format usable for project management remains an unresolved technological challenge in current XR environments.

Action Plan

The research approach will combine:

·      A state-of-the-art review intersecting the fields of design engineering, project management, multi-criteria decision-making, collaborative virtual/augmented reality, and algorithmic explicability;

·      The conceptual modeling of a multi-criteria collective decision-making framework adapted to the immersive environment;

·      The development of a prototype environment based on XR technologies (immersive headsets, AR interfaces, real-time 3D engines) coupled with industrial data sources;

·      User experiments under controlled conditions and then in real-world settings, involving multidisciplinary teams engaged in the design of a FAL and its deployment;

·      A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the environment (explicability metrics, decision quality, user satisfaction, cognitive load).

IMT Mines Albi and CGI Laboratory

IMT Mines Albi, a school under the authority of the French Ministry of Industry, is part of the Institut Mines-Télécom, France’s leading group of engineering and management schools. At the forefront of industrial and academic challenges on the international stage, it acts as a scientific and economic driver for its region by combining its four missions—training engineers with a focus on sustainable development, conducting scientific research, contributing to economic development, and promoting the culture of science, technology, and innovation—into a virtuous and innovation-driven cycle.

Its position in education and research establishes IMT Mines Albi as a reference school in three of the IMT’s four thematic areas: future sustainable industries, energy - circular economy and society and, health and well-being engineering.

Through its Centre Génie Industriel (CGI), IMT Mines Albi conducts research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and industrial engineering, in collaboration with national and international public and industrial partners.

The Centre Génie Industriel (CGI) (cgi.imt-mines-albi.fr) comprises approximately 70 people, including 25 PhD students. The center focuses on supporting the transition of ecosystems by enabling responsible and sustainable decision-making in unstable or disrupted environments. This is achieved through the representation, modeling, and analysis of organizational data to formalize knowledge that leads to decision-making in heterogeneous, collaborative, uncertain, and/or disrupted contexts.

The CGI is structured around applied research axes and scientific programs. The research axes are:

·      FLOWS: Flexible Logistics and Operations for Sustainable Worlds (this PhD contributes here).

·      DiSCS: Digital Systems for Crisis Management and Security;

·      TRACE: Territorial Resilience, Agility, and Circular Economy;

·      WHOPS: Well-being and Health through Organizational Processes and Services.

The two core scientific programs underpinning these research axes are:

·      HOPOPOP: Hybridization for Operations & Planning, Organizations & Performance, Optimization & Problem-solving (this PhD contributes here).

·      AIME-DM: Automated Information Modeling and Extraction for Decision-Makers.

Profile and application:

Education

·      Industrial engineering, design engineering, or industrial project management;

·      Computer science with a specialization in virtual/augmented/mixed reality, human-computer interaction, or data visualization;

·      Systems engineering or aeronautical/aerospace engineering.

Competencies

·      Technical: proficiency in 3D development environments (Unity, Unreal Engine, or equivalent), knowledge of data modeling, and interest in MCDM methods;

·      Scientific: ability to conduct rigorous literature reviews, formalize conceptual models, and design experimental protocols;

·      Personal: interest in complex industrial issues, aptitude for multidisciplinary teamwork, autonomy, and intellectual curiosity;

·      Linguistic: proficiency in French (working language); operational level in English for scientific writing and international communications.

Application

Application materials: CV, cover letter, summary of Master’s thesis or research work, transcripts, Recommendation letters (in industry and research experience) and any other supporting documents.

Application deadline: June 21, 2026, 12:00 PM.

Notification for interview: no later than June 26th, 2026.

Contacts:

Victor Romero, CGI, IMT Mines Albi (Co-directeur de thèse) : victor.romero@mines-albi.fr

Séverine Durieux, CGI, IMT Mines Albi (Co-directrice de thèse) : severine.durieux@mines-albi.fr