Abstract
The “fourth industrial revolution” also called “Industry 4.0” is transforming a wide range of industrial sectors from design to manufacturing to construction, including both of their connected supply chains. This will create an increased technical and organizational complexity of industrial processes and therefore an increase in demand for qualified staff at all organizational levels. The entailing increased degree of digitization and automation requires a dramatic change for engineering education. The required competencies of future engineers consist of advanced hard skills consisting of an integration of industrial engineering with mechatronics and informatics engineering competencies. Such skills are needed to re-engineer processes with the support of information technology and automation to increase interconnection and collaboration among machines and human operators. Moreover, future engineers require soft skills like teamwork ability, problem analysis abilities, structuring capabilities, data analysis and interpretation skills.
This Special Issue represents a collection of pioneering first applications of learning factories in the era of Industry 4.0 as well as innovative ideas for future engineering education.