Transferable Competence Frameworks for Automotive Industry

Abstract

Never before in the history of human activity has there been such rapid knowledge growth and associated knowledge change as is the case with our modern information technologies. The European automotive industry generates 12.6 million (direct and indirect) jobs in the EU with a total trade balance of 96.1 billion € [10] and is the EU’s top investor in R&D, with 50.1 billion € invested per year. The industry produces close to 20M vehicles per year, accounting for 20% of the worldwide production through its 15 manufacturers and associated supply chains. This entire industrial sector thus needs to evolve and adapt at fast pace in order to stay ahead in global competition, while including all stakeholders and addressing societal needs.

While this trend is strongly supported and even enabled by cyber-physical systems and Industrial IoT (IIoT) a shift of the value creation in the automotive domain toward ICT domain can be observed. Simultaneously, the traditional training and education of required domain experts and highly skilled engineers cannot keep up with the pace required to stay in sync with the pulse of time.

This paper will focus on the description of skill frameworks integrating ECTS, ECVET, ECQA, SKILLMAN, and ESCO formats for the automotive domain. To that aim, skills description, classification, quality and application guidelines to provide bases for a common recognition framework for awards between formal and informal education schemes in the automotive domain will be presented. Within this work, we present the different teaching concepts available, their benefits and limitations, and an overview of existing regulations, guidelines and restrictions for study programs given by various authorities. Furthermore, we present a mapping to accommodate different transferability frameworks and enable a mutual recognition of skills.