With the aim of preparing students for “Professions 4.0”, which require highly specialized skills in technologies and applications typical of Industry 4.0, the Comau Academy has developed a series of professionalizing training courses for Higher Technical Institutes (HTI) that are being adopted by an increasing number of training institutions.
This innovative educational offering involves more than 30 high-specialization schools throughout Italy, and a target group of approximately 1,500 students, with study programs that combine the use of robots and new technologies with an experience-based educational mode, to facilitate and make learning STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), robotic programming and technical-industrial skills, soft skills and corporate culture more effective.
The laboratory solutions that the Comau Academy addresses to HTI students and teachers are 2: the “Professional Training Centers” and the “Model Factories”. Both are based on the use of industrial technologies, adapted by Comau to be able to perform educational functions, reproducing work lines or a real production environment. The Comau Academy also provides educational material specifically developed for these projects (slides, videos, exercises, training and summative assessment tools) which can also be consulted via the LMS – Learning Management System – online platform, and training courses for the teachers who must deliver the courses.
The Professional Training Centers are their own professional training environments in which 200 to 400
hours of teaching can be carried out, at the end of which each student obtains a “Profession 4.0 Certification”, relating to the learning of concepts and understanding in a specific industrial field. The courses conducted through these special training stations are: “Programmer 4.0 of automated systems”, to learn how to program and control a collaborative robotic arm; “Manufacturer 4.0 of industrial robots”, to be able to maintain robots and improve the efficiency of machines and plants within a digital factory; “Robotics and Robotic Welding Expert 4.0”, to manage a simulation cell for robotic arc welding, with the help of an integrated e.DO robot with Soldamatic AR technology; “Robotics and Cobot Expert”, to learn how to program a collaborative robot, such as Racer-5 Cobot, deepening human-machine interaction during production processes.
Instead, the Model Factory is an educational environment that simulates an entire manufacturing, logistics and organizational system at an industrial level, designed to train technicians and professionals called upon to face the new challenges posed by the digital transformation of Factory 4.0, leveraging practical and theoretical knowledge of traditional and enabling technologies. Each educational proposal is designed and delivered by Comau on a bespoke basis, integrating technology solutions, software, complete facilities and equipment to lead specific applications and respond to any training needs, in addition, Comau Academy is the only one that covers all levels of study, from elementary to college, to target professional careers as well.
“Manufacturing companies, and others, are constantly looking for specialized professionals, with expertise in traditional automation systems, but also in enabling technologies that are indispensable for operating within a factory that uses digital solutions. The professional educational offering of the Comau Academy meets this need, supporting the Higher Technical Institutes, committed to training the professionals of the industry of the future, with a proposal of ever-evolving, innovative and effective educational pathways, which enable them to learn to use robotics and new technologies in an experiential and practical way.
Stefano Pesce, Director of the Comau Academy