INDUSTRY 4.0 LEARNING FACTORY DIDACTIC DESIGN PARAMETERS FOR INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Samuel Mensah Sackey,Dennit Adams,Andre Bester

doi:10.7166/28-1-1584

Abstract

To manage the impact of Industry 4.0 on industrial engineering (IE) education curriculum requirements, realistic teaching and learning infrastructure such as a learning factory are required. This paper scans the literature to determine Industry 4.0â€™s principles and interactions with IE and a learning factory, surveys relevant universities by questionnaire to determine its current status and practices, and formulates didactic design parameters for an Industry 4.0 learning factory to support IE education in South Africa, making use of existing models of cyber-physical systems and learning factory morphology. In other results, the technical universities are discovered to be more positively disposed, in general terms, to developing an Industry 4.0 learning factory than are the traditional programmes which, with one exception, prefer computational facilities. Of ten universities that offer IE, only one â€” a traditional programme â€” has made significant progress towards creating an Industry 4.0 learning factory.Â

Highlights

1.1 Industrial engineering educationLearning factory in Industry 4.0The intent of this paper is to develop likely didactic design parameters for a model industrial engineering Industry 4.0 learning factory in a South African context.Two themes with significance for industrial engineering education permeate the industrial automation and manufacturing digitisation literature at the moment
The outcome of the literature search is a set of indicative pointers to the dimensions of the industrial engineering (IE) learning factory infrastructure required in Industry 4.0
The Industry 4.0 IE learning factory didactic model presented in this work is only one possible concept; like all engineering design, other good models are possible, the exact form depending on the particular application scenario

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Industrial engineering educationLearning factory in Industry 4.0The intent of this paper is to develop likely didactic design parameters for a model industrial engineering Industry 4.0 learning factory in a South African context.Two themes with significance for industrial engineering education permeate the industrial automation and manufacturing digitisation literature at the moment. One is Industry 4.0 and the crucial role its technologies will play in how engineering curricula are developed and implemented. As currently articulated, this means understanding new requirements such as broadening of the knowledge and skill-sets of IEs, and knowing how to prepare for the digital transformation and adapt curricula to explore the possibilities effectively to acquire inquiry/problem-solving skills that are meaningful, adaptable, and integrative. The second, closely related to the first, is an Industry 4.0 learning factory and the pivotal role it will play in helping to develop creative, collaborative, communicative, and innovative engineers who are globally aware, and possess the high and relevant digital literacy required to keep pace with the exponentially burgeoning digitalindustrial world that offers vast promise, but at the same time demands a timely critical stance to avoid unexpected shocks. Its main aim is to bring the real world into the education environment by providing engineering students with practical hands-on experience through real-life projects

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