DEVELOPMENT OF A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR ENHANCING THE ADAPTATION OF PLASTIC SMES BUSINESS MODELS TO INDUSTRY 4.0 Erasmus Project

Project Title

DEVELOPMENT OF A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR ENHANCING THE ADAPTATION OF PLASTIC SMES BUSINESS MODELS TO INDUSTRY 4.0

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

After a little more than 2 years the 4Zeroplast project has been successfully completed and validated in the 3 project partner countries: Portugal, Italy and Spain.
The participating entities were: 3 associations from the plastics sector: AVEP (ES), PROPLAST (IT), Pool-Net (PT); 1 university: POLIMI (IT); 1 technology centre: CENTIMFE (PT) and 1 private company: NUNSYS (ES).
In total 51 managers (17 per participating country) have validated it and it is now available for companies in the sector to download and use the APP for free and get their personalised report.
What are you going to learn? – Training Materials
A training program was developed, aimed at strengthening the skills of Managers in the Plastics Industry (SMEs) for them to be able to take on new business models and challenges launched by Industry 4.0 and to assist them in evaluating and planning the applicability of I4.0 in their business.
The 4ZeroPlast training program will be facilitated through a guided learning APP supported on an e-learning platform. The training is based in MOOC – Massive Open Online Course and follows a collaborative learning approach supported in training itineraries adapted to the pace of each trainee.
The structure of the MOOC consists of case studies, informative micro-pills, and various reference materials, facilitating the learning and integration of knowledge.
The case studies consist of video contributions with interviews of experts from companies providing their testimonials strongly related to the application of Industry 4.0 to plastics.
The micro-pills are short videos introducing sub-topics which are deemed as essential for the comprehension of the topic and for better understanding of reference materials.
Reference materials are training materials such as papers, videos, documents, and infographics that the students can use to delve deeper into specific topics. The training materials are available in English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.
The training lasts about 3 weeks and the course is divided into 3 modules, as follows:
-M1: Impact of I.4.0 in Plastic SMEs
-M2: Basis of I.4.0
-M3: Strategy Innovation Management
Each module is composed of 4 main topics structured in learning units with a duration of one week each.
Participants will be able to validate their knowledge on specific topics through an inquiry while always being able to reinforce their learning on the e-Learning platform. After that, students should complete a diagnosis to understand the current situation of their company regarding digitalization. Once the training is finished trainees will obtain a personalized Report, supporting the definition of the strategy and applicability of I.4.0 within their company.
WHERE? – e-learning platform
The training course for managers of the plastics industry is provided through an e-learning platform that uses Moodle as LMS (Learning Management System).
It contains 1 Moodle course organized into 4 sections, the content of which is filtered by language.
There are 4 languages available: English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The language chosen by the user also affects the interface translation.
The user ID required to access the platform can be obtained free of charge by registering on the 4zeroPlast APP; users may then access the “E-learning” section of interest. All operations are managed by the APP using a Single Sign On protocol,
HOW? – the APP tool
The 4ZeroPlast project required a highly customized technical solution in order to provide a feasible and state of the art tool that would help CEOs and other C-suite staff in plastics companies to learn, evaluate their knowledge, and diagnose the state of their company regarding I.4.0.
In this regard, it was clear to us that in order to make it a suitable solution we had to create a mobile APP that users were able to use “on the go”, but also with a process that was as easy as possible to use, so non-technical users could easily navigate the process.
Thus, we created a back-end infrastructure based on the programming language Python, with the framework Django. This is one of the most modern and flexible frameworks for backend development in current times. This back-end has an administration dashboard where admin users can edit the translations of the questions that appear on the mobile APPs, but mainly, it serves to follow-up on the user registrations and validation process, in order to analyze if users are getting into the APP and using it.
This back-end has been put together with API’s in order to provide the data to the APPs.
These APPs were developed in a native way both for Android and IOS to guarantee full compatibility with the largest possible number of users and devices.
The entire infrastructure is hosted in a Tier3+ Data Center in order to guarantee the greatest availability in time and security levels for the tool.
Do you want to dive deep into Industry 4.0?
Download the APP from the official stores: GOOGLE PLAY and APP STORE

Project Website

https://www.4zeroplast.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 262628 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASOCIACION VALENCIANA DE EMPRESARIOS DE PLASTICOS – AVEP & Country: ES

Project Partners

• NUNSYS
• ASSOCIACAO POOL-NET PORTUGUESE TOOLING PLASTICS NETWORK
• CONSORZIO PER LA PROMOZIONE DELLA CULTURA PLASTICA PROPLAST
• CENTRO TECNOLOGICO DA INDUSTRIA DE MOLDES E FERRAMENTAS ESPECIAIS – CENTIMFE
• POLITECNICO DI MILANO