New robotics training package closes qualification gap in automation

The company ABB Robotics wants to close the global training gap in automation further and prepare students at schools and universities for the working world of the future. To do this, the company has developed a training package that can be used immediately. Included is a collaborative GoFa-type robot as well as internationally recognised teaching materials. During development of the “ABB Robotics Education Package” care was taken to ensure that educational institutes can train young people for companies which want to profit from robot aided automation.

Although internationally, around 80 percent of training institutions realise that automation will define the working world in the coming decade, few institutes have robotics as part of their curriculum. Reasons are the lack of trained teachers and the difficulty of integrating the content into the curriculum. "As robot-aided automation is being introduced into more and more sectors, from manufacture and distribution to retail and health care, companies are looking for people accustomed to robots and automation,” says Andrea Cassoni, head of the global Business Line General Industry at ABB Robotics. “The ABB Robotics Education Package offers schools and institutes of higher education a simple way to develop and conduct robotics training courses. This way we contribute to closing the technical qualifications gap and to preparing students, schools and universities for an automated work place.”

At its core, the tuition package developed by ABB consists of a collaborative GoFa robot mounted on a compact table. Students can use this assembly to learn real industrial applications like pick & place tasks or 3D printing. Thanks to lead-through programming and the Wizard Easy Programming software, even young people without any technical knowledge can operate the robot.

The teaching material contains a total of twelve lessons and is suitable for beginners and advanced learners. It starts with basic robotics and leads to more complex applications and programs. All in all, the lecture offers 56 hours of content: including videos, interactive exercises online, 400 test questions and practical exercises with the offline programming tool RobotStudio. The software is being used by companies around the world for planning, simulating and developing real robotics solutions in a virtual environment.

The tuition package is rounded out by an internationally recognised STEM certificate for teachers and learners, which is supported and authenticated by the educational research and credentialing organisation STEM.org. This allows companies to certify teachers who can then certify their learners’ competence to operate robots. This way all participants receive a recognised qualification with which they can demonstrate their abilities in robot-aided automation to employers in more than 80 countries.

For ABB, introducing the Education Package is another step to help students at schools and universities develop the necessary skills for a working world to which robots will belong as a matter of course. Right now the robot manufacturer is working with institutes of education in more than 40 countries.