JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Digital transformation opportunities as TTMA, UWI and MIC-IT sign MOU

by

900 days ago
20220930
The three signatories to the MOU to establish and Industry 4.0 Learning Factory are, from left to right: The University of the West Indies’ St. Augustine Campus (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA), and MIC Institute of Technology Limited (MIC-IT).

The three signatories to the MOU to establish and Industry 4.0 Learning Factory are, from left to right: The University of the West Indies’ St. Augustine Campus (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA), and MIC Institute of Technology Limited (MIC-IT).

The man­u­fac­tur­ing and process in­dus­tries can look for­ward to cut­ting-edge skills train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties in In­dus­try 4.0 and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion.

That as­ser­tion from Tri­cia Coos­al, Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), fol­low­ing the sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with the TTMA, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus (UWI), and MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy Lim­it­ed (MIC-IT).  The MOU cov­ers their col­lab­o­ra­tion on es­tab­lish­ing a Learn­ing Fac­to­ry to fa­cil­i­tate Train­ing, In­dus­try 4.0 Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Re­search and De­vel­op­ment, Process Im­prove­ment and oth­er ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est.

“The MOU will es­tab­lish syn­er­gis­tic stake­hold­er re­la­tions to forge the sub­stan­tive goal of ac­cel­er­at­ing the de­ploy­ment of In­dus­try 4.0 and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion in the man­u­fac­tur­ing and process in­dus­tries in the coun­try and re­gion,” the TTMA boss ob­served.

“TTMA is ea­ger to ex­e­cute a close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus and MIC-IT. TTMA be­lieves that this part­ner­ship can help SMEs to de­vel­op the nec­es­sary ca­pa­bil­i­ties to op­er­ate and com­pete in the dig­i­tal en­vi­ron­ment of In­dus­try 4.0. The skills that will be har­nessed via the learn­ing fac­to­ry will sup­port the in­dus­try as it moves to­wards in­te­grat­ed and flex­i­ble ad­vanced man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy,” she said in an of­fi­cial state­ment on the mat­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMA pres­i­dent, the learn­ing fac­to­ry is “a dri­ving force to­wards our [TTMA’s] strate­gic ob­jec­tive of pro­mot­ing the use of tech­nol­o­gy in keep­ing with glob­al de­vel­op­ments in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and to ef­fec­tive­ly re­spond to dis­rup­tive forces.”

She added: “We al­so see this as an im­per­a­tive step to our ma­jor goal—dou­bling the coun­try’s non-en­er­gy ex­ports in five years.”

A sur­vey of man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies in TTMA’s mem­ber­ship high­light­ed the need for train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in In­dus­try 4.0, with com­pa­nies ac­knowl­edg­ing these skills as crit­i­cal for their fu­ture com­pet­i­tive­ness. As such, the learn­ing fac­to­ry will pro­vide a prac­ti­cal en­vi­ron­ment fo­cus­ing on high tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal skills and will al­low com­pa­nies to train and cer­ti­fy their tech­ni­cians, en­gi­neers and man­agers in the phi­los­o­phy and tech­nolo­gies of In­dus­try 4.0.

The MOU will al­low MIC-IT to be­come an au­tho­rized In­dus­try 4.0 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cen­tre, of­fer­ing mi­cro-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cours­es to achieve As­so­ciate, Spe­cial­ist as well as Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for var­i­ous job po­si­tions in the dig­i­tal en­vi­ron­ment.

“Over the past 47 years, it is safe to say that MIC-IT is no stranger to tech­no­log­i­cal and in­no­v­a­tive process­es in the Man­u­fac­tur­ing In­dus­try,” stat­ed MIC-IT Chair­man, Pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert.

“We see this col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ship play­ing a vi­tal role in up­grad­ing the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the man­u­fac­tur­ing and process in­dus­tries in the Caribbean re­gion,” he added.

UWI’s Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor and Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal, Pro­fes­sor Rose-Marie Belle-An­toine, not­ed that this col­lab­o­ra­tive and syn­er­gis­tic re­la­tion­ship will ac­cel­er­ate the de­ploy­ment of In­dus­try 4.0—al­so known as the Fourth In­dus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion—as well as the Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion in the man­u­fac­tur­ing and process in­dus­tries in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the re­gion.

“The needs of our re­gion are ex­treme­ly broad and some­times com­pet­ing for at­ten­tion”, Pro­fes­sor Belle-An­toine ob­served. “Nev­er­the­less, The UWI re­mains com­mit­ted to ex­plor­ing the range, do­ing the re­search, and cre­at­ing the tech­nolo­gies and strate­gies which are of crit­i­cal im­por­tance for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.”

Di­rec­tor of the St. Au­gus­tine Cen­tre for In­no­va­tion and En­tre­pre­neur­ship (StA­CIE), Dr Gra­ham King, is one of the main dri­vers of the ini­tia­tive.  StA­CIE was cre­at­ed to pro­vides a di­rect link be­tween acad­e­mia and pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties.

“Tran­si­tion­ing to In­dus­try 4.0—which is akin to Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion for the Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Process In­dus­tries—will be make-or-break for Caribbean man­u­fac­tur­ers,” said Dr. King. “The sec­tor is chang­ing very fast, and the re­gion has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to stay on the cut­ting edge, if it can em­brace this rev­o­lu­tion.”

“The Learn­ing Fac­to­ry will help to pro­vide the skills and con­fi­dence need­ed for lo­cal in­dus­try to im­ple­ment this new tech­nol­o­gy. UWI has on­go­ing re­search look­ing in­to the op­por­tu­ni­ties for boost­ing in­no­va­tion by adopt­ing In­dus­try 4.0, and the Learn­ing Fac­to­ry will pro­vide a plat­form for deep­en­ing our re­search,” Dr King added.

TTMA pres­i­dent, Tri­cia Coos­al, re­vealed they are seek­ing grant fi­nanc­ing for the ini­tial learn­ing fac­to­ry cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture.

“In the long-term, we in­tend for the learn­ing fac­to­ry to be­come self-suf­fi­cient,” she re­marked, “with the train­ing cours­es cov­er­ing the op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es.”

Business TechnologyMOU


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored