Since virtual engineering has been introduced inside industries, time processes have been reduced and products are more adapted to customer needs. Nowadays, the DMU is the centre point for all teams: design, manufacturing, communication etc. However, physical mock-ups and prototypes are sometimes requested. Consequently, a back-and-forth action between the real and the virtual worlds is necessary. Our research team has developed a reverse-engineering methodology for capturing technical characteristics of industrial objects but also for capitalizing knowledge and know-how which are required for contextualizing life cycles. More precisely, we work with ancient industrial machines. It is what we call Advanced Industrial Archaeology. Thanks to the coupling of different kinds of 3D digitalization technologies and CAD software, we are able to re-design old industrial objects and old processes. To illustrate our proposal, we will describe one of the experiments we have done with a salt-washing machine which is nearly 100 years old: from the global 3D digitalization of the plant to precise parts design, we have rediscovered the enterprise process and understand its integration in the economic context.