New Innovative Simulator Tools for Quality Capacity Environmental Production Process Training in Education of Migrants

"<< Background >>The motivation for applying for this project is based on the needs in the fabrication industry for a workforce with knowledge and competence within the welding sector. An increasing lack of qualified personell all over Europe has created a recruitment problem for this industry which will increate as the industry is moving towards Industry 4.0 technologies. The need for re-skilling and up-skilling of personnel is at the same time increasing, which means that personnel with long absence from the education sector will need to get additional training. The increasing number of migrants into Europe, or within Europe , needs to get proper training alternatives to the academic pathway.The IQSIM2 project will simplify the needs for these groups by addressing a new way of both presenting teaching alternatives for difficult theories by implementing ""What -if"" type simulator for solving problems related to mathematics and material science as well as welding simulators for education and training of welding skills in practical welding.The new training methodology that will be developed through the project will open a new educational route for migrants as well as adult personnel needing re-skilling and up-skilling of their current knowledge.<< Objectives >>The project want to achieve the following:1. To develop and implement a new training methodology that will help adult personnel and migrants to get jobs in the manufacturing industries.2. To implement work-based learning techniques in the training methodology so that the students will follow real industry examples in their training and through this build not only skills but also are able to build competence.3. In order to overcome barriers in the education, due to long absence from formal education, the project will implement a Welding Simulator tool, IQSIM (developed through a LdV project in 2008-2010), in order to overcome shortcomings in their theoretical knowledge. This simulator will help the students, together with the appropriate tasks, to easily sove technical problems without needing to know the mathematics and the metallurgy in the materials, and in this way get easier access to problem solving issues.4. Create an education methods that also will enable migrants to get an easier and quicker access to the European job market.5. To start to specify a new welding simulator that also will take into consideration the environmental issues, the greening issues and allow the students to simulate these problems as well.<< Implementation >>The project has created a number of activities through the project periode. These activities have been spread carried out over a wide time span. Somer of the activities have been not foreseen, but have been created as a part of the project development and as a part of gaining new insight in the problem areas.The main activities have been as follows:1. Developed a new system for education the welders according EWF Guidelines for International Fillet Welders.The system has been developed as a set of Competence Units(CU´s) that follow the product development cycle of a product being created and fabricated. These CU´s can be delivered in a sequential manner or it can be delivered randomly. In this system two types of welding simulators were implemented as a part of the training, a theoretical oriented simulator (IQSIM) and a practical training simulator.The CU´s have been developed in such a manner that it can be transferred to a micro-credential based system and at a later date, being documented in the EU Digital Wallet. Minor alterations have to be done in the CU in order to implement these features.2. A set of training scenarios have been developed for the use of the welding simulators including teachers scenarios with questions and practical examples.3. A set of training videos based on the training simulators have also been created in order to obtain a more realistic visualization of the problem areas.4. A set of work-related tasks for the students have been developed together with a set of industri related exercises.5. A number of train-the trainer courses have been carried out in the participating countries.6. A general pilot course with contents and tasks have been implemented in the LMS system Its Learning. This LMS system have been used in Norway, Hungary and Romania.7. A set of training courses have been carried out in the different countries.8. A detailed specification for a new IQSIM system has been developed with special emphasis on green welding, reducing the carbon footprint and reducing the use of resources. this system will also follow the production streams from early design to delivery of the product. The innovative specification allows the user to define new ""green"" production methods as well as create a design suited for the current and future production methods. The baseline data shows that nearly 70% of the repair or alteration costs in production can be avoided by utilizing such a new tool.<< Results >>The concrete outputs and the result of the project can be summarized as follows:1. A new course concept for training of welding personnel has been developed. This concept can be further enhanced and quality assured in order to get a status as micro-credentials for the individual Competence Units (CU) in the course. This will allow the users, teachers and students, to select the course elements, CUs, on a spick-and-select basis in order to select the learning path that suits the individual best.2. The course concept let us create micro-credentials, and CUs, in different countries and combine these into the same course.3. The course use work-based ideas as a guide for developing the course. This means that the industries and SMEs will influence the development and maintenance of these courses, thus focusing on the industry needs.4. The CUs use the welding simulator IQSIM as a tool for solving technical calculations. This have some clear advantages.:a. The simulations ""hide"" the mathematical components for the students. This means that people not been within the educational system for years , will get access to the more theoretical partys of the CU and without needing to know the theory. Through this re-skilling and up-skilling becomes far more easy. The same relates to migrants that very often lack the theoretical background and also, as a general rule, have problem with the language. By ising the simulator they can alter the technical variables on- the- fly and then see the results immediately. This means hat the students can ask the question: ""what happen if I select these parameters instead of those"" and they will dynamically see the alterations.b. The welding simulators being used in this project are used for the practical training. The reason for using this simulator is that the experience in welding training is that the use of gases, materials, energy and so on is at the top level in the start up of practical training. By using the simulator, we will lower the initial training costs and the use of consumables, materials, energy and reduce the creation of dust and hazardous gases significantly.5. The project also created an innovativ new specification of a new technical simulator. This simulator will allow the users to focus also on the sustainability aspect of the welding processes. The simulator will also add simulation of fatigue elements which today is mostly forgotten in the evaluation of the life cycle elements for a given design. The simulator will also allow the designer to simulate alternative designs ion order to optimize the production parameters and reducing the life-cycle costs. The practical development of this simulator has to be carried out through another project."