Competency development for work with 4.0 technology

It is necessary to send specialized technical training to disadvantaged communities located in any geographical region, using equipment and technology 4.0. The practice equipment will be installed in a specialized laboratory as part of an intelligent network and the person in training will be able to access from any geographical location and at any time through a special software, to perform the laboratory practices in and support the evaluations. The intelligent equipment will have the advantage that it can be activated for practices from a window on any mobile device, thanks to its IT network, programmable controllers, sensors, cameras, software. With these resources, people can be trained remotely, first with the theory on their mobile devices and then practice with real equipment always remotely controlled.

The problem identified is that people with limited economic resources and rural areas cannot access quality technical training, in the same way people with young ages have strong responsibilities in their homes that forces them to look for work to help support his family and leave his studies in the foreground. A study conducted by the Foundation for Higher Education (FES in spanish), with statistics from 2016, determined that in El Salvador about 280,000 young people between 15 and 19 do not study, equivalent to 37.9% of 680,000 in that same age range. The same study states that 4 out of 10 students do not complete high school, and a report from the Ministry of Education revealed that 211,000 people of regular age should be studying high school. Some of the factors that affect the problem are long distance to educational and vocational training centers, prioritization of day time in activities that generate economic income, underemployment that does not allow them to finance their studies, the belief that women cannot perform jobs that men traditionally do, among others.

Since 2011, we have been working on technological literacy activities for children, then this initiative evolves into a scientific camp for girls, where they are taught fundamentals of robotics, computer-aided drawing and 3D printing, fundamentals of electricity and renewable energy. In the first case, children from rural public schools in the area of influence of Don Bosco University were invited to attend the laboratories of the Technology Research and Transfer Center, where they learned about STEM areas in a few weeks, demonstrating that children are receptive when they have the appropriate resources and appropriate methodologies. This initiative can be scaled to more Salvadoran municipalities and more Latin American countries, developing laboratory banks that can be operated and monitored remotely, with the help of 4.0 technology, including virtual theoretical resources, internet, mobile applications, and in the laboratory it is required programmable automatons, network systems, sensors, cameras, etc.

The solution will allow obtaining materials, equipment, tools, hiring qualified personnel for the construction of the practice modules, developing learning objects, developing mobile applications and practice guides, making the necessary dissemination to make the knowledge of the population concerned in studying and training.

The proposed solution begins in the first phase with the development of practice banks that incorporate 4.0 technology, such as sensors, IT networks, actuators, programmable controllers, mechatronic modules, computer, internet access, high resolution cameras, learning website and software. The development of each of the mechanical, electronic and computer components will be carried out by specialists in each discipline. The practice teams must be in accordance with the curricular contents authorized for technical baccalaureates and which are applicable for job training, for example electrohydraulics, electropneumatics, basic electronics, programmable automatons, among others. Learning objects and virtualization will be in charge of website specialists and online course developers.

The second phase is to configure software and the website, so that students and participants can connect to the computers via the Internet from any location, for turning on the equipment, do functional tests, uploading and downloading of programs, commissioning of the exercises, the industrial safety to avoid operations that can generate conflict or accidents in the equipment, the warnings and aid of the software. After configuration, the operation of the systems must be validated to reduce the chances of error.

The third phase is the training of teachers, facilitators and the laboratory worker. This phase includes the establishment of alliances with institutions that can finance the training of interested persons, to implement the use of developed resources and the training process as such. Another possibility is the transfer of knowledge, designs and programs so that more institutions can make use of it, with a sales figure, so that with the funds obtained it can be invested in the development of more laboratory equipment in a short time.

The innovative is it allows students or participants to carry out laboratory practices with real equipment, from any geographical area of El Salvador or Latin America, with availability of resources 24 hours and 7 days, accessing via internet the equipments of laboratory, getting each user to manage their time at convenience.

With this project we make learning inclusive, because it can be accessible to people who live in rural areas, with different educational levels, and schedule the practice in advance for any schedule, without the need for direct supervision by laboratory managers, and the system will be able to record the user's name, the execution time of the practice, the level of compliance with the requirements of the exercises, and all the relevant information for the evaluation.

With the real practice equipment, different types of exercises can be carried out by means of control of regulating valves, directional valves and actuators, connected in various arrangements, which represent for example food grain balers, box folding machines, box dockers, packaging machines of medicines, etc.

As an experience, some years ago we trained boys and girls in basic education in rural schools, on topics of electropneumatics and basic electronics, and the students in 12 hours learned to program electro-pneumatic control circuits, electronic cards and learned to use a computer with Simulation software, which reinforces the idea that with the appropriate resources you can achieve the learning objectives set.

The problem that will be addressed is the lack of inclusion of people to specialized technology, which helps in the improvement of skills related to electro pneumatic, electro-hydraulic and programmable control systems. In this sense, the innovation center has the experience in design and development of machinery and equipment, so for this project, laboratory equipment is proposed in the form of replicas of production machinery, where a laboratory technician will keep them available to be used. The practice equipment must have an appropriate interface so that they can control through the computer, from its power on, self-check, individual tests of operation, loading of the program, run of the program, sending of error and alert messages, completion of Work routines and shutdown, without the need for manual drives. The practice system must allow the connection via internet from another computer, so that users control the programmed practices, which can be enabled in accordance with the progress of the technical contents. Because participants must receive system indications if they are active and properly adjusted, and they must also be able to observe the machines from different angles, the system must have monitoring systems and cameras, which help to transmit the necessary information from the equipment to the user in real time and evaluate the progress according to the training activity. With the above, participants can be included in the systems of continuous training and formal education.

Currently, the laboratories of hydraulics, pneumatics, automatons and robotics attend semiannually an average of 400 students of the Don Bosco University and participants of professional training courses. With the implementation of the connectivity of the laboratories described, the offer of services can be extended to other Salvadoran municipalities, including other countries in Latin America, with this, the services can be provided up to almost 800 people in one year, and about 4,000 people or more in five years. The majority of students come from the Municipality of Soyapango, Ciudad Delgado, Ilopango and San Martín, then fewer students from San Salvador, Mejicanos, Apopa, Nejapa, Quezaltepeque, among others. The attraction to pursue technical careers at Don Bosco University is the level of technological equipment of its laboratories, so it is desirable that more people residing in remote places can have access to the technology available in the laboratories of the Institute of Research and Innovation in Electronics and Innovation Center in Industrial Design and Manufacturing.

In the next year we continue with the renewal of equipment in the laboratories of the Institute for Research in Innovation in Electronics and the Center for Innovation in Industrial Design and Manufacturing, in the same way we look for ways to bring training to more people, both in the area of University influence as in other remote municipalities, seeking to support the population interested in this type of training.

In the next five years, we must strengthen distance learning programs, semi-face programs and, as far as possible, increase the technical offer of continuous training and formal education, to benefit people who find it difficult to enroll in technological institutes or in technical universities.

The main barriers that currently exist are economic, human, cultural and social resources.

The economic barrier is that we have a low budget, which reduces, in this case, the speed of the development of intelligent workbenches, the reason is that all areas of the university require improvements, maintenance and annual updates, so the general budget should be distributed in the different units.

The human resource barrier is that in the institutes and centers we have personnel dedicated to administration, maintenance, teaching and research, who with limited time would advance very slowly in the project.

The cultural barrier is the conception that face-to-face training is of better quality than distance training.

The social barrier is the idea that poor people, children, pregnant mothers, girls, or population of risk areas, cannot receive quality technological training.

An alternative to overcome the economic barrier is to have funds is the search for support with international institutions that can support these projects of humanitarian interest.

The way to overcome the human resource barrier is by hiring people dedicated exclusively to the project and hiring external workshops that can manufacture some custom mechanical parts, in order to boost construction times.

We can break the cultural barrier by making available real equipment similar to an industrial manufacturing equipment that can be operated remotely.

To break the social barrier, this project will link any interested user regardless of age, sex, maternity status, geographic location, etc., in accordance the experience we have working with young people, girls, children, in previous years.

In my work team I have a mechanical engineer (from the innovation center), an automation engineer (from the electronics institute), and in March we will have another engineer hired, then will be two colleagues who will support me.

I have two full-time technicians and a part-time technician.

For the design and assembly services of the automatic control systems we are supported by three colleagues from the Research Institute in Electronics Innovation.

Subcontracting to manufacture parts can be manufactured with the Vocational Training Center (Ciudadeal Don Bosco in spanish), Cisneros workshops, Central American Tools (HECASA in spanish), among others.

Before working at Don Bosco University, I did it in the Armed Forces Logistic Support command, founding an automotive technical baccalaureate, then in the Executive Hydroelectric Commission of the Lempa River CEL supervising the drilling of geothermal wells, then in the Ingenio La Cabaña, in the areas of mills and maintenance. Later I did family entrepreneurship in the maintenance of machinery and construction of packing machines, so that in the last 12 years I have been working at the university, firstly giving training for air maintenance personnel and for 10 years as manager of the innovation center that I run. In this last position I have dedicated myself to carry out research related to manufacturing and to enhance the manufacture of equipment, tools and machines, so that the experience gained in maintenance supports me to carry out projects in manufacturing, automation, teaching and creating an postgraduate program in maintenance. Similarly, the colleagues of the Institute of Research and Innovation in Electronics have extensive experience in maintenance, research, design and development of automatic and electronic control systems, as well as extensive experience in teaching and professional training. For the creation of learning objects, we can receive support from the Distance Training Department, which is leading distance and semipresence engineering and undergraduate degrees. Another element that supports us is that from the institutes and centers of the university, we seek to provide services to companies, sometimes related to development and sometimes related to maintenance.

At the moment there are maintenance contracts for some institutions such as National Charity Lottery, we have just finished various research projects with USAID funds for Higher Education for Economic Growth, about four Private Public Partnership projects with GIZ. The projects with USAID and GIZ was work in the form of leverage.

We save time and money, so that educational institutions and training centers can prepare their students and users, in electronic, electro-pneumatic and electro-hydraulic control systems, with a focus on automation. We provide an alternative of private public partnership between the offices of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MINEDUCYT) and the Don Bosco University, where the first one finances student enrollments, for courses through their schools and educational institutes, and the second makes the laboratories available for internships at all times of the week, remotely from any geographic location in El Salvador or Latin America. The direct benefit of the populations is evident as they prepare, since they can be hired in companies to perform technical tasks with better quality, which can translate into salary improvements and improvements in their quality of life. The channels for the training will be through the virtual platform and for the internships it will be through the internet that enables each job, according to the level of progress of the student or participant.

To improve existing equipment, financial support is required from foreign institutions that believe that the online learning system and the distance practice system is effective. Don Bosco University will support the infrastructure that will be used for the assembly and development of the project, as well as the salaries of full-time researchers involved in the development and implementation of the solution. For the sustainability of the operations and maintenance of the laboratories, the economic contribution is required in the form of scholarships, financed by MINEDUCYT, INSAFORP, NGOs, foundations, private companies and other institutions, with which participation is granted to students and company personnel in the courses offered. Because Don Bosco University is a non-profit institution, the income obtained is used in the sustainability of laboratories and in the improvement of practice equipment.

The challenge of being able to help disadvantaged or vulnerable people at this time because of their low level of preparedness represents a motivation to present alternatives of help for these people, managing support through foreign institutions that focus their efforts on reducing poverty, training and empowerment of low-income people, etc., in order to improve their training, their income and their standard of living. In this case we consider that we can rely on the use of information and communication technologies, the technologies available for industry 4.0, the learning objects for online courses, equipment for industrial use, to name a few. Don Bosco University has experience in the administration of funds granted by international cooperators, for example for infrastructure projects, research projects, technology update projects, education strengthening projects, which demonstrates its tradition of managing funds for the benefit of youth and the Salvadoran industry, the empowerment of women, accompaniment of girls and boys to pursue STEM careers, support for rural schools, among many of their programs and projects. As an innovation center dedicated to manufacturing, it is complex to be able to obtain the necessary short-term funds from the university budget, since several areas must be prioritized, while with the help of international organizations the necessary funds can be available in short time.

Foreign universities, non-profit organizations that support youth, children and women for STEM careers, international research centers, whether they can support financially, that provide help to implement projects of social and scientific interest, which Orient in the “know how” to scale projects and their results to the other countries of Latin America and maybe other continents, in order to continue transferring knowledge and experience of current and future success stories.