Skillman.eu’ skills anticipation lifecycle anticipates the skill needs in Advanced Manufacturing implementing a “ systematic, future intelligence-gathering and medium to long-term vision-building process aimed at identifying opportunities and areas of vulnerability to assist present-day decision-making ” [1] . Within these processes, the experts and the stakeholders participants’ attention is pointed to a set of specific  skills pillars  that have to be taken into account for the analysis and thus balanced to be properly included, when possible, in the identified policy strategies and in the curricula newly designed or revised.

Skillman.eu has identified its set of ‘ skills pillars ’ taking a priori inspiration from the EU 2020 strategies, from educational and labour trends [2] , ,  from other sectoral initiatives [3] , analysis and from the European policies in the fields of education and training and takes also into account the CEDEFOP and the ESCO [4]  developments in relation to skills needs and professional standards.

The skillman.eu’s skills pillars are grouped in “ critical skills ”, skills related to “ challenges and future trends ”, " AM skills for KETs [5] ", " skills for ICT ", " Green skills ", " Entrepreneurial skills ", and " Ethical Skills ".

  

[1]  JRC-IPTS, For-Learn online foresight guide: an A to Z of foresight http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/guide/A1_key-terms/foresight.htm

[2]  The talent challenge: Harnessing the power of human skills in the machine age, 20th CEO Survey, PWC, https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/2017/deep-dives/ceo-survey-global-talent.pdf

[3]  The consortium takes into account various SSA and SSC documents and in particular valorises, among the most relevant for the AM sector, the results and publications of the SkillMan - Sector Skills Alliances for the Advanced Manufacturing (skillman.eu), the EASC - European Sector Skills Council in Automotive Industry (euautomotiveskillscouncil.eu), METALS - Machine Tool Alliance for Skills (metalsalliance.eu), SkillME - Skills in Metal and Electro Industry  (gzs.si/skill-me ), LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN – A SHIFT INTO LEARNING OUTCOMES IN THE WELDING SECTOR (makeitproject.eu), 4CHANGE - Industry 4.0 CHAlleNGE: Empowering Metalworkers For Smart Factories Of The Future (metindustry.eu/projects/linpra) including, for the coming years the future results that will be published by the most recently approved new European Alliances like: MeMeVET – Mechatronics and Metallurgical VET for sectors’ industries, CLLAIM – Creating knowLedge and skilLs in AddItive Manufacturing and DRIVES – Development and Research on Innovative Vocational Education Skills.

Furthermore, the project take in general consideration the literature and results produced among the Blueprint action for sectoral cooperation on skills and in addition to the valorisation of the specific SSC in the automotive sector, take into account the results generated by the European Sector Skills Councils set up and funded in the Marine Technologies sector and to the feasibility studies, also related to AM industry, done in the Construction, Steel, Automotive, Chemicals, Furniture, Shipbuilding and Electricity.

[4]  ESCO is the multilingual classification of European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations. ESCO is part of the Europe 2020 strategy.


The 2020 target points to a work fully networked, flexible, integrated, open and innovative and the skillman.eu takes it in charge aiming to identify the new skills and competences and to design new learning pathways that allow the European industry to “ stay or become the world leader in innovation, digitisation and decarbonisation ” [6]  promoting the following critical skills:

  • Social Intelligence
  • Novel and adaptive thinking
  • Cross-cultural competency
  • Computational thinking
  • Transdisciplinary
  • Virtual collaboration

 

[6]  On 13 September, in his annual State of the Union address, President Jean-Claude Juncker stated: "I want to make our industry stronger and more competitive. The new Industrial Policy Strategy we are presenting today will help our industries stay or become the world leader in innovation, digitisation and decarbonisation." http://ec.europa.eu/growth/content/state-union-2017-%E2%80%93-industrial-policy-strategy-investing-smart-innovative-and-sustainable_en

The renewed EU Industrial Policy Strategy brings together all existing and new horizontal and sector-specific initiatives into a comprehensive industrial strategy. It also clarifies the tasks ahead for all actors involved and makes all the actors responsible to make the workforce equipped with the right skills for the future trends, like:

  • Complex problem solving
  • Critical thinking
  • Creativity
  • People management
  • Co-ordinating with others
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Judgment and decision making
  • Service orientation
  • Negotiation
  • Adaptability

KETs are a group of six technologies: micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology, industrial biotechnology, advanced materials, photonics, and advanced manufacturing technologies. These technologies are related to the AM and can be found in the following specific aspects of the competences that in some case can overlap with the ICT skills (see below):

  • AM machine-specific knowledge
  • AM design and optimization
  • Manufacture parts for production according to  quality standards
  • Manage the effect of processes and materials on part quality and safety and applying  regulations and standards .

Digital skills are nowadays  a key competence for all .  The Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Members Charter [7] , applied by the skillman.eu, promotes a modernisation of the education and training that includes the skills related to:

  • digital skills for employability,
  • competitiveness and
  • participation in society.

skillman.eu introduces these concepts in its review and aims to include the  digital skills as an integral part of his results . In particular, the specific skills of:

  • coding and
  • user skills belonging in particular to the Advanced Manufacturing technology and related, more in general, to the Internet of things, the Robotic, the Big Data, the Cloud Manufacturing, the Advanced Human Machine interface, the Advaced Automation and the Augmented reality.

 

 

[7]  https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/sites/digital-agenda/files/digital_skills_and_jobs_coalition_members_charter_0.pdf

Skillman.eu takes inspiration from existing initiatives [8]  and implements a general concept and approach to greening human capital and economy referred to the wider approach to sustainability introducing skills linked to the transition to a circular and greener economy. The skillman.eu approach  to green skills requires that the workforce is equipped with technical skills, knowledge, values and attitudes  to develop and support a sustainable social, economic and environmental outcomes in business, industry and the community .

Skillman.eu considers the green skills as a fundamental for the sustainability deployment and therefore embeds, in its methodological solutions and curricula, the needed skills for green economy and sustainability.

The skillman.eu curricula have to be provided with specific units of learning that make the students apply the knowledge of:

  • engineering
  • biology and
  • ecology

through hands-on activities and simulations, to make them able to research and design potential solutions to these true-to-life challenges. The skillman.eu green skills include the  skills to investigate and design solutions in response to real-world challenges related to clean and abundant drinking water, food supply issues, and renewable energy .

 

 

[8]  From the Dutch perspective for all public vocational training courses, the Netherlands have introduced the so-called optional specialisations (keuzedelen) entitled /Sustainabiltity in the profession/. These optionals can be selected by students at the four different TVET levels of the Dutch TVET system. They focus mainly on the in-company training period and aim at formulating personal improvement opportunities in the field of sustainability, conducting research on sustainability in the company, making a proposal for sustainability improvement in the profession and calculating the revenue. The combination of these activities depend on the level of qualification.

Specific sector related optionals also exist and most qualifications have introduced specific green and sustainability aspects related to the profession. Some sectors (mainly in the technological areas) have started initiatives to support TVET institutions in promoting sustainable craftsmanship, e.g. in the construction sector https://buildupskills.otib.nl/english.

Skillman.eu takes inspiration from the European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework [9]  to introduce entrepreneurial skills and to apply a logic of progression, as it is described in the EntreComp Progression Model. The EntreComp framework is made up of three main areas that include:

  • ideas and opportunities
  • resources
  • into action

Each of these is in turn made up by a number of competences that, together, are the building blocks of a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship as a competence that skillman.eu introduces to the attention of its stakeholders and experts.

 

 

[9]  BACIGALUPO Margherita, KAMPYLIS Panagiotis, PUNIE Yves, VAN DEN BRANDE, EntreComp: The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework, European Union, 2016

Since the Advanced Manufacturing technologies allow individuals to realise extremely powerful and dangerous productions, the Skillman.eu Alliance aims to consider the relevance of the ethical skills that are classified taking inspiration and applying the James Rest’s (1983; Narvaez & Rest, 1995) [10]  ‘Four Component Model’. This model describes the psychological that comprise an ethical or moral action and groups the skills as following:

ETHICAL SENSITIVITY

  • Identify the interested parties
  • Weigh the possible outcomes

ETHICAL REASONING  (Selecting the most ETHICAL action)

  • List all possible options
  • Make a decision

ETHICAL FOCUS/ MOTIVATION

  • Value identification
  • Prioritize the action

ETHICAL ACTION

  • Judge the feasibility of the chosen option
  • Take action
  • Follow through
  • Reflect

 

 

[10]  Narvaez, D. with Endicott, L., Bock, T., & Mitchell, C. (2001). Nurturing character in the middle school classroom: Ethical Action. St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning.

Narvaez, D. & Bock, T., with Endicott, L., & Mitchell, C. (2001). Nurturing character in the middle school classroom: Ethical Judgment. St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning.

Narvaez, D., & Endicott, L., with Bock, T., & Mitchell, C. (2001). Nurturing character in the middle school classroom: Ethical Sensitivity. St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Children, Families & Learning.

Narvaez, D. & Lies, J. with Endicott, L., Bock, T., & Mitchell, C. (2001). Nurturing character in the middle school classroom: Ethical Motivation. St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning.

Skillman.eu Alliance deploys his plans implementing a tunnelling system aimed to involve the stakeholders and to make them to give and effective contribution to the skillman.eu targets and finally to valorise these contributions in the concrete development of new or revised curricula. The system is composed by four steps that occur in continuous:

  1. Dissemination / awareness creation

  2. Observatory activities / consolidation of interest

  3. Skills technology foresight / decision and identification of skills needs

  4. eu constructional design implementation / sectoral action

The following chart illustrates the skillman.eu’s tunnelling structure:



[1] © skillman.eu consortium

Skillman.eu Alliance deploys his plans implementing a tunnelling system aimed to involve the stakeholders and to make them to give and effective contribution to the skillman.eu targets and finally to valorise these contributions in the concrete development of new or revised curricula. The system is composed by four steps that occur in continuous:


Dissemination / awareness creation

Observatory activities / consolidation of interest

Skills technology foresight / decision and identification of skills needs

eu constructional design implementation / sectoral action


The following chart illustrates the skillman.eu’s tunnelling structure:

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