VLFT

Higher education has to keep pace with the global market needs for the necessary ICT skills and the overall understanding of the complexity of industries in 21st century. Manufacturing companies have to effectively deal with the constant evolution of products, processes and production systems (and all in parallel) that can be more easily monitored, developed and up-graded by using digital tools. The project focuses on the development and integration of a Virtual Learning Factory Toolkit (VLFT), i.e. a set of existing digital tools to support advanced engineering education in manufacturing. The aim of the VLFT is to bring back to engineering students the results of research activities in the field of digital manufacturing. Modelling, analysis, virtual and augmented reality, as well as the role of the human workers in the factories are among the main research topics in manufacturing. In addition, VLFT project deals with the trans-nationality of the activities. Teaching and learning in higher education needs to adapt to developments related to mobility, multi-locality, and transnational migration of European citizens and companies. Engineers are not only asked to have state-of-the-art technical knowledge, but also to work in international teams spread in different sites and nations. Therefore, the objective of this project is to improve and enhance the learning process in higher university education of sustainable engineering also through mobility and cross-border cooperation. This will happen thanks to multidisciplinary, inter-cultural teams of students and supervisors (from 3 European universities and 2 research institutes) that will work together along the project, in particular during workshops and joint leaning labs.