Developing Competencies for Continuous Improvement Processes on the Shop Floor through Learning Factories - Conceptual Design and Empirical Validation

Developing employees' competencies in order for them to be able to solve problems quickly is an essential feature of future-oriented production. The object of research and practice in this field is to develop action-oriented approaches implemented through learning factories. So far, however, these approaches have not taken sufficient account of production workers, even though the development of their competencies is necessary for a broadly based and continuous improvement process. An integrative approach is presented. It enables the development of problem-solving competencies among shop-floor workers during a target-oriented continuous improvement (CI) process with the use of learning cells. (c) 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Professor D. Mourtzis and Professor G. Chryssolouris.