Digitisation is fundamentally changing both industry and society. The networking of employees and machines as well as increasing automation will fundamentally change the role of employees in the industrial value creation process. The job roles of nearly all of the approximately 1.1 million employees in mechanical and plant engineering will transform over the coming years.

For example, employees in modern assembly lines must be able to swiftly process information, derive decisions independently and act on their own responsibility. Modern industrial engineers must not only optimise existing processes, but also actively contribute to the development of new ones. To do this, they must be able to derive process times and ergonomic parameters from digital models, simulate scenarios and design new solutions in the digital model. This new work environment makes the development of competences based on personal requirements in the form of person-centred services indispensable. It is also becoming apparent that continuous and lifelong learning is one of the fundamental building blocks for a successful digital transformation.

Consequently, from an economic, social and societal perspective, work-related skills development is a key aspect in ensuring competitiveness in the medium term. However, industrial companies have so far only limited knowledge about the upcoming changes and the resulting competence requirements for employees. This makes it difficult for them to design adequate and, above all, individualised training measures. The central question of the research project "Learning in the digitised working world" (LidA) is therefore:

How can company- and employee-specific teaching and learning modules in the form of person-centred services enable employees to meet the challenges of digitisation?

The joint project "Learning in the digitised working world" (LidA) was launched on 1 January 2019. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The starting point of the project is the question of how company- and employee-specific teaching and learning modules in the form of person-centred services can enable employees to meet the challenges of digitisation. This question will be investigated in the coming years by a renowned consortium of research and industry partners.

Cooperation partner: Institute for Industrial Management FIR at RWTH Aachen University.

Funding body: This research and development project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the research programme "Innovations for tomorrow's production, services and work (funding code 02P17D081)" and supervised by the Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTKA).

Project period: January 2019 - December 2021