Smart labs for circular economy education

Mélanie Despeisse
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Abstract:

The industrial transition to a circular economy (CE) relies on new strategic, operational and transversal skills across sustainability and digital domains. Learning factories and smart labs have high potential for delivering sustainability-oriented learning outcomes as they can rapidly integrate CE educational contents with minimal changes to the assets already in place.

This lunch seminar will focus on a framework to evaluate the readiness of smart lab facilities for CE education. The evaluation framework aims to (1) review existing smart lab facilities and courses, (2) map assets and teaching activities against skills and competences for CE, and (3) create an action plan for CE integration in the smart lab. It builds from the extent literature on digitally supported CE transition in industry, CE skills, digital skills for Industry 4.0, and teaching activities in smart labs.

The evaluation framework will be tested with smart labs around Europe to check its usability and usefulness to accelerate upskilling for smart and sustainable manufacturing in the context of the twin green-digital transition.

Mélanie Despeisse is an Associate Professor in Sustainable Digitalized Production at the department of Mechanical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology. She is the co-founder of the Swedish Circular Economy Network (SCEN) and profile co-lead for “Material and Circular Economy” within Chalmers Land thematic area. Together with Dr. Federica Acerbi, she also co-leads the Special Interest Group on “Eco-efficient and Circular Industrial System” for the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 5.7 on Advances in Production Management Systems (IFIP WG5.7). Her research aims to integrate sustainability principles (such as eco-efficiency and circularity) in industrial practices by developing tools and methods for environmental performance management in manufacturing operations.

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