Learning Factory: The Path to Industry 4.0

Abstract

Nowadays, there are plenty of studies that seek to determine which are the skills that should be met by an engineer. Communication and teamwork are some of the most recurrent ones associated with a knowledge of the engineering sciences. However, their application is not straight forward, due to the lack of educational approaches that contributes to develop experience-based knowledge. Learning Factories (LF) have shown to be effective for developing theoretical and practical knowledge in a real production environment. This article describes the transformation process of a training-addressed manufacturing workshop, in order to structure a Learning Factory for the production engineering program at EAFIT University. The proposed transformations were based on the definition of three pillars (didactic, integrative and engineering) for the development of an LF. We argue that a proper transformation process may contribute to ease the path towards new manufacturing trends such as industry 4.0 into an academic context that strengths the engineering training process.