On January 30, a new hall with modern equipment for the training of specialists according to Industry 4.0 requirements was presented to metal branch professionals in Latvia. The hall is located in Jelgava, Metalworking Training park af Zemgale region Human Resource and competences development centre (ZRKAC). The hall has been equipped with modern equipment adapted for smart production under «Industry 4.0». The specialists from industry and Jelgava vocational school  will have a possibility to acquire new skills how to use a laser for metal sheet cutting, an automatic material storage system, the latest generation of welding equipment, metal bending machine with CNC control system, CNC welding robot / manipulator, which can also work as a 3D plasma cutter.

 

The new hall is a logic further development of the existing possibibilities for metalworking branch specialist training un Latvia. So far the main directions of specialist training were welding and CNC specialists.  The metalworking branch needs skilled people to operate modern CNC machines, and it is not possible to master digital programming devices without appropriate, up-to date training material and good practice base.

 

The participants of the event were introduced also to the outputs of ESF project “Industry 4.0 Challenge:Empowering Metalworkers for Smart Factories of the Future (4CHANGE)”, that was addressing the following objectives: designing new targeted vocational education training programm, and development of self- adaptive work-based learning system. The training material has been  produced by 12 partners from 4 countries –Lithuania, Estonia, Germany and Latvia and will help to prepare skilled specialists for work with CNC machines and other technologies based on numerical  control systems.  

 

Now there is the necessary metalworking infrastructure in line with the latest trends in automation and robotization and also the training materials that meet the requirements of Industry 4.0. Training of the specialists to work with the new equipment will start in the nearest future.

 

S. Bukbarde

“4Change” project coordinator in ZRKAC