Learning Factories for upskilling the workforce at SMEs towards Industry 4.0

Learning Factory as a concept, deals with the idea of transferring and creating of knowledge to the industry – this is focused towards both new players as well as incumbents. During the time of writing, the focus of the industry is towards the 4th Industrial Revolution – the connected industry – most often referred to as Industry 4.0 – and the idea of Industry 5.0/Labour 4.0, the human centred advanced production, is beginning to emerge in academic. Industry 4.0 offers a wide range of possibilities, but where there are opportunities, there are also challenges. Through awareness seminars and workshops a focus have been set on the visionary, strategic and economic parts of the industrial sector - This has been carried out with the focus of Industry 4.0 topic and have been explored, both in general and with a focus on specific topics. But to move from an Industry 2.0/3.0 level to an Industry 4.0/5.0 requires both a willingness in investment, a courage to leave the well-known and several employees who share the vision of a new industry, based upon the old one. Industry 4.0 implementation is going to require a specialized workforce with a multidisciplinary mindset and an ability to work with a broader mindset than the specialization that have been educated over the last many years – a T-profile with both general focus on Industry 4.0 skills and an updated focus on their specialty. These employees need to gain knowledge about Industry 4.0 as well as their managers, it is the creation and transfer of this knowledge which is the focus of this thesis. For this, Learning Factories as a supporting transfer method will be examined. The focus will be to provide a broad understanding within the Industry 4.0 to the industrial workforce both on a operator and integrator level in the SMEs in North Jutland in Denmark. This will be supported by Learning Factory as a method for transferring knowledge to gain the technical skills necessary for the implementation of Industry 4.0 and to create new multidisciplinary knowledge in the industry of North Jutland. The focus on the operator of Industry 4.0 technological production systems will require a focus on Learning (L), Training (T) and Assistance (A) when used – this can be shortened to an LTA method. Therefore, will the LTA method be investigated to support that a Learning Factory session in the task to upskill the operator level to a satisfied transition towards Industry 4.0 at the North Jutland SMEs.
This project is a part of Innovation Factory North (IFN), which will supply access to SMEs in North Jutland through Awareness, Demonstrator and Anchoring seminars.

Innovation Factory North (IFN) is a cooperation between Aalborg University and industrial SMEs in the northern part of Denmark. The project is a base for an ecosystem for innovation based on Industry 4.0 technologies, data driven results and self-organising production systems. The ecosystem involves technology provides from the regional area, technology users (SMEs) and knowledge institutes to ensure an enforced focus on innovation and technology in the regions SMEs1.
This PhD project main topic starts with the topic Learning Factory. But what is a learning factory and how can the topic support the goals of the IFN project. The concept of learning factories was published at the first Learning factory conferences (CLF) in 2010 and have been a concept focused on the idea of transferring knowledge of modern industrial production topics to both students as well as private companies. The basic idea is to give an understanding of the value of all aspects of a production chain from an order is received to the way through the factory floor and to the final product is shipped out – with a touch of all processes that happens through production.
A main topic of Learning Factories has been focused on the technologies and topics of Industry 4.0 that were introduced as a high-tech strategy of the German government in 2011 – the idea was to ensure production stayed in Germany though the use of implementation of technology-based solution2.
Awareness for Industry 4.0 have been a strategy focus in the industry sector worldwide almost from the day it was introduced, with large companies as a spearhead while SMEs tried in smaller scale to implement the technologies and methods in their production. But a general picture is showing that on an operation level there is a gap in both knowledge and technical Competences in the industrial workforce at the companies – and that these gaps are a limiting factor in the implementation of the technologies to bring the production into an industry 4.0 era.
One of the Labour 4.0 project conclusions is that a specific focus on the industrial workforce of SMEs and a focus on the here-and-now technical competences would clear the way for the mindset of industry 4.0 in SMEs. A little like “How to eat an Elephant? One bite at a Time!”3
Therefor will this PhD project focus on the industrial workforce of SMEs and explore Learning factory as a method towards the transfer of knowledge of both Technologies and Technical competences of Industry 4.0 and bring a method to measure the effect of a learning factory and a LTA session.