The French Factory Unit of Arts et Métiers Institute of Technology is part of an European network focused on exploring innovative learning schemes to address current industry challenges.
The introduction of new technologies in the manufacturing industry, such as hybrid material and processes, virtual/augmented reality, reconfigurable automation or artificial intelligence, is contributing to accelerate the development and modernisation of the industry, making it more efficient, flexible and competitive. As a result, it also brings the need to adapt the teaching and learning of these technologies in order to better prepare the manufacturing stakeholders for this transformation and, in particular, for the current context of open innovation and open science.
Fostering the collaboration between companies, higher education and research institutions for the setup of advanced industry-focused learning schemes, M-NEST-I project aims to implement the operational conditions that will help organisations and individual users to autonomously and intuitively explore, experience and become qualified to work with new manufacturing technologies in the most diverse production and innovation scenarios.
In France, the Factory Unit of the M-NEST network will be implemented and tested in the facilities of the Arts et Métiers Campus de Metz and the Arts et Métiers Institut de Châlons-Sur-Saone.
“The M-NEST-I France Factory Unit is part of the European M-NEST network and will support the training of students, teachers, researchers and industrial professionals, providing the necessary learning tools to build the European industrial community of the future”, says Cláudio Santos, INEGI researcher and coordinator of the project.
The M-NEST-I France Factory Unit is part of the European M-NEST network and will support the training of students, teachers, researchers and industrial professionals, providing the necessary learning tools to build the European industrial community of the future.
The M-NEST European network will provide a wide range of training activities focused on the most advanced processing and production technologies, and will support the academic education, advanced training, R&D, technology transfer and dissemination to different audiences and training spaces (from classrooms to factory floors). This network will also provide access (virtual and face-to-face) to high quality and technology-specific learning materials, contributing to make education in Added-Value Manufacturing Technologies a stimulating experience for a wider audience.
“The M-NEST-I will run as a pilot-project of the network's activities; at this stage, the trainees will be selected by the project partners, but the ultimate goal is to have more people and companies benefiting from the innovative learning schemes as soon as possible”, explained Tudor Balan, associate professor at Arts et Métiers Institute of Technology, head researcher of the project at France Factory Unit.
This project is funded by the EIT-Manufacturing and joins INEGI, INESCTEC and FEUP (Portugal), ENSAM - Arts et Métiers Institute of Technology (France), Aalto University (Finland) and SUPSI - University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland.
