NAME OF THE PROJECT: Skilled Hands for Hi-tech Production

ACRONYM: CompoHUB

START DATE: 1. 9. 2015

END DATE: 31. 8. 2017

DURATION: 24 months

PROGRAMME: Erasmus+ (http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/) / KA2 Strategic Partnerships in VET (http://ec.europa.eu/education/opportunities/vocational/index_en.htm)

The composite industry is characterised by high added value and complexity of manual work processes. The future of the composite market is expected to be highly competitive, and companies with innovative capabilities and skilled labour force can thrive and gain market share. However, the growth of the composite industry has been to some extent limited due to the unavailability of skilled labour force, resulting from its specific complexity, requiring working habits, experiences and manual skills. All these tacit assets can be offered by the surplus and currently unemployed labour force from the traditional industrial sectors, such as wooden or textile industry. The key identified problem is that the Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems do not offer structured quality training programmes in the field of composite manufacturing that would reduce the existing skills mismatches.

The main innovative result of the project is a holistic training programme to educate, train and – consequently – properly qualify the workers in the field of composite manufacturing, which will be responsive to the identified market needs and tailored to the specific requirements of the target training group (i.e. wood cabinet makers/joiners). The training courses will be integrated and available through the developed on-line open-source learning platform, allowing wide exploitation and simple customization according to the different market needs. In addition, the project will train the educators and trainers from companies and VET institutions and will organize a teaching/learning mobility with a particular focus on work-based teaching. The project will develop and manage the Composite HUB which will present a durable and result-driven strategic partnership, involving 3 main groups of stakeholders: 1) organizations that carry out research and development on composites and/or manufacture composite materials, 2) organizations that use the composite materials to manufacture composite parts for different industries (e.g. aerospace, automotive, marine etc.) and 3) training organizations and VET providers.