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The Role of Engineering Education in Industry 4.0 Era

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 20974

Special Issue Editor

Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Interests: Industry 4.0; lean construction; lean manufacturing; supply chain management; production planning and control in MTO and ETO enterprises
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The “fourth industrial revolution” also called “Industry 4.0” is transforming a wide range of industrial sectors from design to manufacturing to construction, including both of their connected supply chains. This will create an increased technical and organizational complexity of industrial processes and therefore an increase in demand for qualified staff at all organizational levels. The entailing increased degree of digitization and automation requires a dramatic change for engineering education. The required competencies of future engineers consist of advanced hard skills consisting of an integration of industrial engineering with mechatronics and informatics engineering competencies. Such skills are needed to re-engineer processes with the support of information technology and automation to increase interconnection and collaboration among machines and human operators. Moreover, future engineers require soft skills like teamwork ability, problem analysis abilities, structuring capabilities, data analysis and interpretation skills.

This Special Issue represents a collection of pioneering first applications of learning factories in the era of Industry 4.0 as well as innovative ideas for future engineering education.  

Submissions to the Special Issue could relate, but are not limited, to the following topics:

  • Learning factories
  • Virtual learning environments
  • Engineering education in the era of Industry 4.0
  • Hands-on engineering education
  • Operator 4.0
  • Competence development
  • Active learning.

References:

  • Coskun, S., Kayikci, Y., & Gencay, E. (2017). Adapting Engineering Education to Industrie 4.0 Vision. arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.08806.
  • Erol, S., Jäger, A., Hold, P., Ott, K., & Sihn, W. (2016). Tangible Industry 4.0: a scenario-based approach to learning for the future of production. Procedia CIRP, 54, 13-18.
  • Frerich, S., Meisen, T., Richert, A., Petermann, M., Jeschke, S., Wilkesmann, U., & Tekkaya, A. E. (Eds.). (2017). Engineering Education 4.0: Excellent Teaching and Learning in Engineering Sciences. Springer.
  • Matt, D. T., Orzes, G., Rauch, E., & Dallasega, P. (2018). Urban Production–a Socially Sustainable Factory Concept to overcome Shortcomings of Qualified Workers in Smart SMEs. Computers & Industrial Engineering. Article In Press.
  • Matt, D. T., Rauch, E., & Dallasega, P. (2014). Mini-factory–a learning factory concept for students and small and medium sized enterprises. Procedia CiRP, 17, 178-183.
  • Schuster, K., Groß, K., Vossen, R., Richert, A., & Jeschke, S. (2016). Preparing for industry 4.0–collaborative virtual learning environments in engineering education. In Engineering Education 4.0(pp. 477-487). Springer, Cham.

Dr.-Ing. Patrick Dallasega
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Learning factories
  • Operator 4.0
  • Engineering education
  • Active learning

Published Papers (2 papers)

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19 pages, 5278 KiB  
Article
Virtual Reality-Based Engineering Education to Enhance Manufacturing Sustainability in Industry 4.0
by Bashir Salah, Mustufa Haider Abidi, Syed Hammad Mian, Mohammed Krid, Hisham Alkhalefah and Ali Abdo
Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1477; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051477 - 11 Mar 2019
Cited by 104 | Viewed by 13724
Abstract
Many advanced product manufacturing approaches have been introduced in the market in recent years. Thus, it is critical to develop modern techniques which can effectively familiarize budding minds with the latest manufacturing procedures. In fact, the contemporary training methods and advanced education practices [...] Read more.
Many advanced product manufacturing approaches have been introduced in the market in recent years. Thus, it is critical to develop modern techniques which can effectively familiarize budding minds with the latest manufacturing procedures. In fact, the contemporary training methods and advanced education practices are crucial to uphold the interest of the new generation as well as to equip them with state-of the art systems. There is a need for innovative ideas and effective methodologies to inculcate the desired competency and prepare students for prospective manufacturing set ups. In the latest Industry 4.0 paradigm, visualization technologies, especially virtual reality, have been emphasized to sustainably train and educate young students. This work presents a technique for utilizing the leading visualization method based on virtual reality in product manufacturing. It aims to acquaint students with the prominent concept of Industry 4.0, the reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS). The RMS has been a demanding topic for the novice and, most often, amateurs are not able to grasp and interpret it. Therefore, this paper outlines the various steps that can be useful for students in order to anticipate the RMS design, interact with it, understand its operation, and evaluate its performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of Engineering Education in Industry 4.0 Era)
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14 pages, 2111 KiB  
Article
Using a Tablet Computer Application to Advance High School Students’ Laboratory Learning Experiences: A Focus on Electrical Engineering Education
by Pao-Nan Chou and Shu-Tzu Feng
Sustainability 2019, 11(2), 381; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11020381 - 13 Jan 2019
Cited by 53 | Viewed by 6431
Abstract
This study proposed an innovative instructional strategy for pre-college engineering education. Learning topics on electrical engineering education in a laboratory setting were selected for further exploration. Specifically, the study investigated how tablet computers with one adopted application influenced student engineering learning. The study [...] Read more.
This study proposed an innovative instructional strategy for pre-college engineering education. Learning topics on electrical engineering education in a laboratory setting were selected for further exploration. Specifically, the study investigated how tablet computers with one adopted application influenced student engineering learning. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pretest and posttest research design. The educational experiment lasted for 6 weeks. The research participants comprised 57 ninth-grade students from a public high school in Taiwan. The students employed either a tablet computer or laptop computer to engage in weekly 3-h laboratory studies. A criterion test was developed to measure student knowledge of electrical engineering. The results revealed that the instructional effectiveness was identical for all the students, regardless of whether they used a tablet or laptop computer. However, those using the tablet computers achieved greater learning improvement. In addition, the qualitative data indicated that the tablet computers facilitated student learning in various engineering learning activities. The results of the study suggested that engineering educators in different educational levels might consider similar instructional methods to inspire students’ engineering learning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of Engineering Education in Industry 4.0 Era)
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