Pilot virtual product development at the University College of Northern Denmark

Next year, the TEFFIC partners will start our pilot projects of educational activities, which will enhance our educational programmes within the field of Industry 4.0. At University College of Northern Denmark (UCN), we will do a pilot project regarding virtual product development, and how students with different professional backgrounds can gain interdisciplinary competences and personal skills.

Virtual prototyping is an enabling technology for Industry 4.0, as designers and engineers use the digital twin of the production plant together with the digital product to predict the production process. Furthermore, this virtual development method is known to reduce time to market and product development costs.

As technologies converge within the Industry 4.0 domain, interdisciplinary skills become more and more critical, and so do the skills to collaborate with people specialised in related fields. Hence, in our pilot, we will focus on building bridges of knowledge between students within the fields of automation, IT and production, so they are ready for the job market of tomorrow.

The pilot will be rooted in an authentic task design, where we implement UCN’s reflective practice-based learning approach into a group work project. The students must solve an ill-defined problem in a virtual product development environment. Collaboration, investigation and reflection will be core elements embedded in the pilot.

We look forward to developing this new educational activity and increase the learning outcome of Industry 4.0 educations together with our Erasmus+ partners across Europe!