Training the Next Industrial Engineers and Managers about Industry 4.0: A Case Study about Challenges and Opportunities in the COVID-19 Era

Abstract

Training the next generation of industrial engineers and managers is a constant challenge for academia, given the fast changes of industrial technology. The current and predicted development trends in applied technologies affecting industry worldwide as formulated in the Industry 4.0 initiative have clearly emphasized the needs for constantly adapting curricula. The sensible socioeconomic changes generated by the COVID-19 pandemic have induced significant challenges to society in general and industry. Higher education, specifically when dealing with Industry 4.0, must take these new challenges rapidly into account. Modernization of the industrial engineering curriculum combined with its migration to a blended teaching landscape must be updated in real-time with real-world cases. The COVID-19 crisis provides, paradoxically, an opportunity for dealing with the challenges of training industrial engineers to confront a virtual dematerialized work model which has accelerated during and will remain for the foreseeable future after the pandemic. The paper describes the methodology used for adapting, enhancing, and evaluating the learning and teaching experience under the urgent and unexpected challenges to move from face-to-face university courses distant and online teaching. The methodology we describe is built on a process that started before the onset of the pandemic, hence in the paper we start by describing the pre-COVID-19 status in comparison to published initiatives followed by the real time modifications we introduced in the faculty to adapt to the post-COVID-19 teaching/learning era. The focus presented is on Industry 4.0. subjects at the leading edge of the technology changes affecting the industrial engineering and technology management field. The manuscript addresses the flow from system design subjects to implementation areas of the curriculum, including practical examples and the rapid decisions and changes made to encompass the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on content and teaching methods including feedback received from participants.