First face-to-face meeting for the DTAM partnership

What do you hate most about the COVID-19 pandemic? If you said something similar to not being able to travel, then we totally agree with you. Recently, we reaffirmed the importance of having to meet people face-to-face and to interact with each other. And what better place to do this if not visiting our partners from the Da Vinci College in the Netherlands?

From October 6th, 2021 to October 8th, 2021 the DTAM team enjoyed wonderful Dutch hospitality in the pleasant city of Dordrecht. Yeah, we actually met, for the first time in 13 months of working on this project and it was a big deal, which deserved its own article.

There’s actually so much to tell, that we don’t even know where to start, but we’ll try anyway.

Our hosts

The Da Vinci College is a medium-sized regional VET College (they’ve got just some ~12,000 students) offering a great variety of secondary vocational courses in various branches including (in)-company training and education for adults. Da Vinci also offers general secondary education for adults and integration courses. Their privately founded University of Applied Science HBO Drechtsteden has Bachelor and Post-Bachelor’s training and Associate Degree programs in the fields of technology, business management, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and ICT.

Our hosts Mr. Jan-Willem Huisman and Mr. Michael Beljaars (a couple of good-looking fellas, who teach at the IT & Media Department) were kind enough to organize a wholesome touring experience, where we got to see their working-teaching environments, laboratories and meet some of the friendly staff working at the college. Part of that tour included meeting the Dean of the IT & Media department – Mr. Martijn van Cooten, who himself accompanied us for most of our stay at the college. He even shared his vision on transforming education and putting the focus on students’ needs and we can’t wait to share all that with you, but that deserves its own article too. So, we saw quite some interesting stuff during our tour, to say the least. Here are some of them.

The Azzurro building

Fun fact: educational departments at the Da Vinci College are gathered in distinctive buildings, which bear the name and have the looks of a particular color, spelled in Italian e.g. behold the The Azzurro building (Azzurro is the Italian word for the color blue): home to the IT, Tourism & Recreation & Sport courses and the VAVO courses.

At the Da Vinci College, you will also find that they’ve got something called “Duurzaam heids fabriek” i.e. the Sustainability factory: a separate space dedicated to stimulating innovation, providing a hybrid learning environment for students, strengthening VET, and shaping technology promotion. And believe us when we say they’ve got some interesting stuff in there. The idea behind the Sustainability factory is pretty simple: students get the chance to learn by working on real practical assignments from companies. They call this hybrid education. Here’s how part of it looks like from the inside (hover over the images to find out more):

The “Huis van de energietransitie”

Yep, this is exactly what it looks like: a house. It’s called “Huis van de energietransitie” i.e. The energy transition house. And yes, they’ve actually built this to facilitate many of the VET training courses Da Vinci College offers in order to provide a teaching-learning experience as close to the real environment as possible.

Huis van de energietransitie

Front look of the “Huis van de energietransitie” i.e. The energy transition house.

A more realistic learning experience

If this photo reminds you of a factory type of pipe engineering, well that because it actually is. The Sustainability Factory has an energy-efficient mechanical installation. The building itself is a another learning object. For example, the heat and cold storage installation in the Sustainability Factory has been used as a learning workspace and the air handling unit is equipped with glass so that the students can see how it works.

The meeting

As already mentioned, it took us a whole year before we could actually get together and officially meet each other. In fact, that would have been really odd if it wasn’t for the pandemic and all the limitations it brought. Having said that, we actually had already made quite some progress and this was just the right time to come face to face and talk about how we can push the project forward.

Following the Da Vinci College tour and meeting, we moved over to a “Joint vision on education” activity which helped us align our expectations about the DTAM project overall and actually helped us identify some key discussion topics to address during the rest of the meeting in general.

  • Touring the Azzurro building.
  • Crashing students’ class to say hello.
  • Sitting down as a partnership for the first time.
  • Martijn’s official welcoming address.
  • Tamar Gideonse (Educational advisor @Da Vinci College)
  • Tamar explaining the basic framework of a student-focused training curriculum.

So, throughout the course of two days, we discussed important issues such as the characteristics of the DTAM IoT Hub and other matters like how we can improve our training course to better suit our stakeholders and last but not least – how we can actually put together a training course which can facilitate an effective learning experience. No pressure there.

We are pleased to inform you, however, that we’ve managed to paint a really good draft of the next steps we are going to have to take and also made some valuable improvements on what we’ve already created so far. Here’s part of out task list, which we wil be focusing on in the coming months:

  • Improve the already developed training modules on Big Data & Machine Learning, Cyber security, Transversal skills, IoT and Advanced sensorica;
  • Create and embed working assignments that will facilitate the actual learning process of the training, including using the DTAM IoT Hub.
  • Enable the international aspect of the training course by involving multiple stakeholder groups from the partnering countries.
  • Provide options for learning interactiveness by setting up a dedicated e-training platform
  • Set-up a first draft of the DTAM IoT Hub and test its capabilities. (Want an easter egg? I think we are fans of the Raspberry Pi).

So, quite a lot of work remains ahead, but rest asured that we are now even more dedicated and excited to built a quality DTAM experiences for the students and all others which will be taking advantage of this ambitious project of ours.

We need your support too, so please feel free to contact us if you would like to collaborate, contribute or simply share your experience with us. You may also help simply by spreading the word about the DTAM project via hashtag #dtamproject or following us on social media.

As always, stay tuned, because we’ve got some more stories of inspiration for you coming up.

Finally, we would like to thank our partners from ROC Da Vinci College for their wonderful hospitality and all the great experiences they gave us: Jan-Willem Huisman, Michael Beljaars, Martijn van Cooten, Frits Silano, Sietske van Voorthuijsen, Tamara Gideonse and Timon Jongkind.

Flexibility and Adaptability: Core Skills in Advanced Manufacturing

In nature, flexibility and adaptability are essential to survive. Flora and fauna around the world are full of examples of these life skills. Quick fact about reed: the stem of this plant is made of fiber, strong enough to resist the roughest meteorological conditions. Even when it is swept by a strong wind, the reed bends but never breaks. In the same manner, many animals naturally develop undercoats in the winter to go through the lowest temperatures.

Just like in the wilderness, flexibility and adaptability allow us to keep growing in our social and job environments.

And yet, unlike animals and plants, humans living in society usually need to learn and practice these skills. This is the reason why the DTAM Training Material on Transversal skills emphasizes the importance of becoming more flexible and better at adapting to multiple changes. Thanks to our training material, workers, educators, and VET instructors will have a tool to acquire more knowledge about these skills that everyone naturally possesses but that are not so obvious to apply, especially in the work environment.

Why is being flexible and able to adapt so essential, especially in the 21st century? In its Manifesto for Adult Learning in the 21st Century: The Power and Joy of Learning, the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) outlines “digitalisation, internationalisation, service orientation, [and] flexibilisation” as the biggest mega-trends of today’s labor market. The EAEA adds, “these trends increase in parallel the pace at which employees have to adapt to the constant change and to gain new competencies”. As companies must become more flexible and adapt to constant change, so must their employees.

The pandemic, climate change, economic gaps, or the fast-paced development of cutting-edge technologies are the central global challenges faced by our society. Flexibility is about looking at these challenges as new opportunities, rather than obstacles. Adaptability is about finding new solutions to build the world of tomorrow. Both these skills are not only essential to face adversity, but also to show resilience i.e. the ability to recover after an obstacle and to move forward.

Whether it is about the learners’ daily lives—having to work without less human contacts—or companies’ social impact—building a more sustainable world—flexibility and adaptability are needed individual and social skills to be (re)learned. Therefore, the DTAM team is thrilled to share knowledge with its target groups about these two transversal skills, among many others.

Stay in touch on the DTAM social media pages and our website to be informed about all the rest of the hard and soft skills to be included in our Training Material.

References:

[1] European Association for the Education of Adults, Manifesto for Adult Learning in the 21st Century: The Power and Joy of Learning (2019)

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INCOBOTICS – Ready for Industry 5.0

The use of collaborative robotics is growing and will continue to grow. Future electronics and robotics graduates will have to work alongside big data and artificial intelligence experts to program, monitor, and analyze data coming in and out of cobots and their integrated computer vision (AV) systems. While we’ve been telling you about DTAM project for the past year now, there was another project steadily making progress towards addressing these challenges: the INCOBOTICS – Ready for Industry 5.0. The project was run by three of our existing partners i.e. Politeknika Ikastegia Txorierri (Spain), Apro Formazione (Italy), IDEC (Greece), and another partner from France – CFAI Adamic. With project INCOBOTICS, co-funded by the Erasmus+ program of the EU, the four partners chose to invest in the future of education and lay the groundwork for this to happen via the following results:

  1. A Training Module suitable for:
  • EQF level 5+ educationalists (HE and high level VET);
  • Industrial and technical students (future workers in Industry);
  • Industrial workers who require upskilling in programming for CO-BOTS via courses for the employed or unemployed workers.

The Module comprises of three ready to use, tested and validated units of learning in collaborative robotics as follows:

  • Introduction to Collaborative Robotics in Industry: Industry 5.0
  • Programming COBOTS
  • Artificial Vision Systems

After attending the INCOBOTICS Module, students will be able to understand Industry 5.0, comprehend the COBOTS major brands available on the market, understand the main functionalities of a COBOT, programme a COBOT, understand the capacities and range of Artificial Vision and learn how to programme Artificial Vision.

2. A Best Practices Guide for Teachers and Trainers, which offers pedagogical support and frames the INCOBOTICS Module in the Challenge Based Learning (CBL) Methodology. The Guide includes:

  • Guidelines for implementing the innovative Challenge Based Learning – CBL- methodology upon the INCOBOTICS Module and Units of Learning;
  • ECT accreditation guide for the INCOBOTICS units/module. Principles can be extracted to support accreditation of other units/modules, which teachers design in the course of their work;
  • Four programming challenges created transnationally using different COBOTs.

The Guide is available in four languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French.

In these pictures: Stefano Antona (Apro Formazione) presents the results of the project during the final event held at their headquarters in Alba, Italy.

On Thursday 30 September 2021, the project ended and the developed materials were finally made available for free on the official project training platform here.

Discover more about the Incobotics project at www.incobotics.eu/

IoT as part of the DTAM Training Curriculum

In recent years, practical steps into Industry 4.0 have shown a plethora of IoT platforms being utilized throughout the producing industries. The result of this heterogeneity on the platform level is an unmanageable variety in the solution requirements on the edge. Most actors in this field have realized that better interoperability of solutions is mandatory if Industry 4.0 is expected to have a continuing impact.

Within the DTAM project, students will be trained to become the engineers of the future by exploiting the knowledge about IoT. ICT technicians will learn to understand all digital technology needed to install, configure and monitor cyber physical intelligence and tools in AM environments. OT technicians on the other hand will learn the ability to understand and manage digitalization tools and the most advanced AM technologies for secure deployment and maintenance.

In the DTAM IoT lab, devices are available for students so that they can learn in practice. With our European network for sharing all sensor data, students will experience what it is like to work in an (international) AM environment and to connect the equipment. They will learn what it’s like to use different connection types like GSM, LoRa WAN, Ethernet, and Bluetooth. With their knowledge of sensors and data connections, the students will be able to work in the Industry 4.0 environment and further shape the digital transition in advanced manufacturing.

The DTAM partnership is now close to finalising the training curriculum. We can’t wait to share some more good news with you very soon, so don’t lose your patience just yet!

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Digitizing business environments: a case study by AFM

The digitization of workshops is one of the challenges that industrial companies are tackling. The fourth industrial revolution, also called Industry 4.0, is at its peak. Virtually all companies have in their strategy, lines related to the digitization of their value chain and the integration of data in it. Advanced digitization, the industrial internet and smart technologies such as the internet of things (IoT) are shaping production systems that have little to do with the industry of 5 or 10 years ago. The factories of the future are going to be smart, geared towards efficiency, sustainability, flexibility, and competitiveness, in a connected environment where people will be a central element.

However, these developments in Advanced Manufacturing are being limited (in their application) to young machines, manufactured less than 10-15 years ago. Older machines, due to their connectivity and sensorization limitations, are being left out of these developments. In order to find a solution to this problem, AFM CLUSTER has participated in collaboration with the companies Fagor Automation and Savvy Data Systems, in the IIoT4ALL project. This project has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Tourism through the General Secretariat of Industry of Small and Medium Enterprises through the aid program to support innovative business groups.

This project has aimed to deploy and validate a solution to access a management system of a plant that integrates devices from previous generations that are not compatible with the new communication standards. In other words, the integration of older machines with more modern ones in a single layer at plant level which brings together all the systems present and allows comprehensive data management.

This layer is of vital importance because many of the older systems, even those with connectivity, do not use the latest communication standards and therefore cannot operate in the same way as new systems in a digitized plant. In addition, the idea of using this layer is to avoid having to modify the machine’s original software, since the aim is to adapt the old and the new communication systems.

Within the activity carried out by companies to digitize their plants, there is a need to include existing machines, that are in full production capacity, in their new production control and planning systems. The companies have to provide this machines with capacities that new technologies allow in terms of programming, simulation and automatic generation of programs that not only increase productivity but also improve the quality of all processes at the plant level. This has already been addressed at the hardware/software level in the machine in previous projects (such as the RETRO-CONNECT project), but a plant level layer was missing that would bring together all the present systems and that would allow comprehensive data management, taking into account both generation devices, the old generation as well as the latest one.

This is an example of a project carried out for the digitization of the workshops. The new scenario will mean an increasing need for adequately trained OT technicians with digital competence.

Projects like DTAM will help to develop digital competencies for the current and future workers. DTAM Training Course will consist of approximately 25 training units on digital and transversal skills relevant for IT and OT technicians in AM environments that contribute to the major areas of Industry 4.0 and the foreseen sections of Big Data, Machine Learning, Sensors, and Cybersecurity.

We will have more updates for you in the coming months.

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IoT Technologies

According to several studies, the Internet of Things (IoT) is being considered as the arrival of the new disruption in the digital realm. It was in 1999 when Kevin Ashton, a professor at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) at the time, used the expression Internet of Things in a conference with an executive team of Procter & Gamble.

In summary, it can be described as an interconnection of any product with any other around it. Its significance is brutal and, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute (Fredrik Dahlqvist,  2019), IoT has increased from 13 percent in 2014 to about 25 percent today, making it a key technology for the advance of our industry, territory and society.

In terms of the number of embedded devices, taking into account that every human being is surrounded by at least about 1,000 to 5,000 objects, it is not unreasonable to expect that the Internet of Things could grow to over 43 million in 2023 according to Mckinsey, although there are forecasts, indicating that this deployment rate will be much higher.

In terms of market impact, the IoT market is expected to reach an economic impact of between $4 trillion and $11 trillion by 2025. In terms of features, functionalities, capabilities, and cost of the Internet of Things, it is relevant to say that IoT platforms are the superbase for interconnecting devices and generating an ecosystem of their own (Ashton, K. 2011).

Companies active in any kind of sector are deploying IoT devices in order to capture data and create new value revenue streams offering new products and services to end-users. This technology will help to digitalize our world creating new business models for all kinds of businesses, from the big corporations to the industrial and traditional SMEs.

Here indicated some of the relevant platforms of IoT existing currently:

In this sense, “A key milestone of the DTAM project is the training curriculum that will focus on five key areas, one of which will be the Internet of Things”. In addition, to facilitate the learning and use of this technology in the framework of the DTAM project, a virtual IoT laboratory is being developed, and for this purpose, it is necessary to design the global map of the integration of devices-systems-services in the value chain. Have a look at the image below, provided by our partners at GAIA, illustrating this integration process:

IoT integrated vision. Global map of the integration. Source: GAIA

Interested in learning more about IoT and Big data? We will have some more exciting news for you in the coming months, so stay tuned!

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Segment your network and protect the core of your business

It’s not a secret that as the number of connected devices in factories grow, the companies are exposed to greater risks. And if this were not enough, there devices usually have different operating sustems, some already outdated and without support. What can you do to prevent a cyber attack from stopping production?

A containment plan is very important for companies that want to mitigate the risks of an attack on their machines. In order to do this, segmenting and organisizing the network is vital. To accomplish this task our partners at Saranet follow regulations such as IEC62443. It is also crucial to have a backup restoration service that speeds up the recovery of the factory in the case of a hypothetical cyber attack.

Here are some of the benefits of having a containment plan:

  • Enables dynamic segmentation
  • Prevents an IP threat from spreading through the comapny’s networks
  • Avoids uncontrolled access
  • Enables data traffic analysis
  • Improves the management of the network

The organization of the connected devices in the factory must include the separation of these in “islands” that do not communicate with each other, but with a central device. It is also key to install transition equipment between the IT and OT networks in the DMZ area, as well as installing firewalls.

How can you mitigate the risks of machine access?

Although it is still common to access the devices locally, usually using a display integrated in the machines itself, it is increasingly common to do so remotely. In both cases it’s very important to track these connections because they access the core of the business. In the first case, it is also important to to have a cybersecurity-aware staff. People can be the weakest link the chain!

When a company accepts a remote action request, the uses accesses the corporate network via the perimeter firewall, so the right to access is guaranteed through a protected communication.

Allowing a direct connection between the corporate network and the industrial netowrk or between them and the internet, is against any good practice.

The following actions should be added to the network segmentation:

  • Strong authentication strategies
  • Secure password policy
  • Proper user namangement and permissions

The DTAM project will create a modern training curriculum addressing advanced manufacturing topics like Cybersecurity, Big data and Transversal skills. Stay tuned to learn more!

Learn more about Saranet by visiting their official website at www.sarenet.es.

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The role of digitalization in business development during the COVID-19 pandemic

According to a study conducted by Euler Hermes earlier this year, countries with higher levels of digitalization have proven to be more resilient to the economic shock caused by COVID-19. Not surprisingly, the United States, Germany and Denmark are in the top three of the Enabling Digitalization Index (EDI) for 2020.

Euler Hermes’ digitalization index (EDI) measures the ability and flexibility of countries to stimulate the growth of digital companies and the ability of traditional businesses to recognize digitalization. The study involves 115 countries and the results are based on five indicators: regulatory requirements, knowledge, connectivity, infrastructure and size.

For 2020, the United States is the best in the knowledge ecosystem, competitive market size and favorable regulatory requirements. Germany is a leader in terms of knowledge and commercial infrastructure, but at the same time the quality of connectivity has fallen, following what has been happening around the world. It is interesting what is happening with China – the country is experiencing growth in all indicators, but faces problems in improving the skills of the population in the digital environment.

The main conclusion of the study is that digitalization can alleviate the shock caused by COVID-19. From an economic point of view, countries whose environment is more favorable for business digitalization (good connectivity, market size, regulations, logistics and knowledge) have managed to successfully respond to the crisis and have increased digitalization in many sectors.

One of the key outcomes of the DTAM project is the creation of the “DTAM Training Course” consisting of training units on digital and transversal skills relevant for IT and OT technicians in AM environments that will enhance the ability of industries to deal with the digitalization challenges caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

The role of Internet of Things in Advanced Manufacturing

Internet of Things (IoT) paves the way for savvy manufacturers to redefine the manufacturing process and how products are designed. Advanced manufacturing allows companies to deliver more value to customers resulting in a much stronger partnership. IoT together with Artificial Intelligence and Big Data are among the key enabling technologies of Advanced Manufacturing.

The adoption of the IoT technology in the advanced manufacturing environment, also called Industrial IoT, has many benefits: cost reduction, shorter time-to-market, mass customization and improved safety. Below are some indicative Industrial IoT applications:

  • Predictive maintenance. By connecting IoT-driven devices that are equipped with different types of sensors, to other devices, cloud or legacy systems, technicians and engineers can obtain essential maintenance data allowing to estimate the current condition of machineries, determine warning signs, transmit alerts and activate corresponding repair processes.
  • Remote Production Control. Thanks to the IoT technology, data collected from various field devices like switches, valves, and other indication elements is transmitted to the industrial automation system that ensures an overall control of machinery amid production process.
  • Asset tracking. The use of IoT technology in combination with native web and mobile apps makes it possible to obtain real-time asset information and make reasonable decisions.
  • Logistics management. IoT can reveal supply chain inefficiencies by eliminating blind spots from logistics processes.

Maximizing the impact of Industrial IoT requires innovation through strategic IT/OT partnerships. For instance, just recently, Siemens, IBM, and Red Hat announced a collaboration that would allow Industrial IoT users to use a hybrid cloud solution to maximize their efforts.

The DTAM consortium brings together education and training providers, advanced manufacturing industry representatives, as well as other key actors of the advanced manufacturing ecosystem to co-design, co-develop and test a novel curriculum and IoT labs for the upskilling/reskilling of advanced manufacturing technicians.

We are almost finalizing the first version of the DTAM curriculum and we are going through the first steps towards defining the specifications of the IoT labs which will be used during the pilots to promote problem-solving and experimental learning.

Stay tuned to learn more!

Sources:

[1] https://www.byteant.com/blog/5-best-use-cases-of-iot-in-manufacturing/

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2021/04/19/how-tech-partnerships-are-driving-the-expansion-of-the-industrial-iot/?sh=3557b0c41c8e

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