Learning Factory for Industry 4.0 to provide future skills beyond technical training

Abstract

The paper will describe the design of a learning factory for Industry 4.0 that addresses the growing demand for future skills of production staff. Existing learning factories often focus on the technical skills whereas this learning factory also trains decision making, group work and performance monitoring skills. The paper refers to the existing categorizes of learning factories and unveils its numerous features. The conceptual design includes theoretical and practical parts, which prove to be successful in a German learning factory that was realized by the authors. Especially, for the industry 4.0 environment, the layout consists of three stages of a production system, from manual to automatized manufacturing. The practical tasks cover the introduction of smart devices, connection of information flows as well as monitoring of performance. The didactical design of the training program provides a sustainable approach by not only realizing training courses but also includes preparation with management, mid-term coaching and success monitoring after the training. The learning factory is a part of a whole research institute for intelligent manufacturing in China including consultancy and application support. One of the underlying goals of the learning factory is to enable production staff for change management, decision making and innovation.