Manufacturing Education for a Sustainable Fourth Industrial Revolution

MAESTRO project brings together excellences in manufacturing research in order to define and deliver the new competencies required by future engineers working in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. In doing so, particular emphasis is given to the aspect related to a sustainable transition to the digital era.

Project Partners

• Royal Institute of Technology – coordinator, Sweden
• Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal
• Loughborough University, United Kingdom
• University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Rzeszow University of Technology, Poland
• University of Pisa, Italy

Background

The fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, is emerging from the introduction of several technological advancements in the way we design and engineer enterprises and their manufacturing and support systems. For the first time technology is not seen simply as a new mean to promote economic growth but also as a pivotal element that will enable a greener future. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, suggested by the UN, promotes the goal towards sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. This includes a specific requirement to harmonize technological development and the future of the environment and society. Higher education must keep the pace of this process by ensuring that experienced, as well as newly graduated engineers, have no gaps or mismatches between their skills and what is required by the labor market.

Objectives

The aim of this initiative is to bring together excellence in manufacturing research in order to define and deliver the new competences required by future engineers working in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. In particular:

• New contents and models will be developed with particular emphasis given to the aspect related to a sustainable transition to the digital era.
• New educational units will be formulated in terms of independent learning blocks which can be easily integrated into existing mainstream programs in the domain of industrial, mechanical, production and electrical engineering.

Methodology

The objectives of the project are implemented with the following actions:

•  Identifying the relevant academic and industrial contributions in the domain of Industry 4.0 and presenting all the eligible innovative topics and the rationale for including them in undergraduate education.
• Defining emerging engineering profiles in the Industry 4.0 domain, including their skills and competences. The focus is on sustainability issues for different engineering profiles.
• Developing  Constructively Aligned educational units, moving away from traditional transmissive approaches towards a student-centered learning process.
• Implementing the proposed courses, running a set of pilot courses and validating the outcome based on feedback.
• Establishing long-term cooperation among the involved organizations.

Project contact 

Prof. PhD. Primož Podržaj (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering)