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.”