Professional skills in the Product Development Process: the contribution of learning environments to professional skills in the Industry 4.0 scenario

Abstract

The Industry 4.0 scenario has raised many challenges for industries. The introduction of new technologies in production and products allows shorter product lifecycles, highly customization of products, and lower development and production costs. Such phenomena generate large amounts of data throughout the product lifecycle, which can be integrated and managed by Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. However, to be competitive in this environment and to cope with these challenges, companies must be able not only to manage effectively their product information over the entire product lifecycle but also to count on highly skilled professionals to do so. The new trends originated from the Industry 4.0 paradigm have changed the design and development scenario, as well as the sets of skills required from professionals. Therefore, product engineers, as well as engineering students in universities, should develop new skills and meet these new market requirements. One alternative to preparing new professionals is through learning environments in cooperation with universities. These learning environments, also called learning factories to enable the transference of knowledge on processes and methods to students through the introduction of a factory concept in the academic environment, in which students can apply the acquired theoretical knowledge in real industry situations. In such a context, a Learning Factory (LF) testbed supporting the product development process in a PLM environment was developed and implemented. This paper aims to present the LF for the product development process implemented in a Brazilian university; how it contributes to the qualification of product development professionals in the Industry 4.0 scenario; its limitations and the future perspectives to meet the demand for new skills.