Last year, the E-Mas joint project was launched at the FIR Institute for Industrial Management at RWTH Aachen University. The objective of the E-Mas programme is to create comprehensive continuing education provision to provide skilled workers, personnel development officers and operations managers employed in Mexico's automotive industry with efficient and effective advanced production management continuing training.
Also involved in the programme with the FIR are the German MTM Association (DMTMV), the WBA Tooling Academy Aachen (WBA), the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) and local partner the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).
The E-Mas project aims to develop comprehensive and integrated continuing education provision around "tactical and operational production management" for the Mexican automotive industry. This provision should not only be tailored to the individual needs of automotive manufacturers and suppliers, but also specifically geared towards the situation in Mexico. To do this, the FIR has designed a survey tool that will be used this November to conduct a detailed market analysis and needs assessment in the country.
Ensuring that the provision perfectly matches requirements is a way to counteract the growing skills shortage being felt at middle management level in the Mexican automotive sector and thus help companies navigate the potential shift to Industry 4.0. The E-Mas programme is designed to meet four key objectives: productivity, continuous process innovation, adaptable technical systems and employee well-being.
The programme is not only innovative in that it brings together well-respected partners and provides redesigned courses, but also with its blended learning concept for how the content is actually delivered: a wide variety of both traditional and modern teaching and learning methods are combined to create a very special kind of knowledge transfer. Course content is provided via a digital learning platform so participants can retrieve it at any time and from anywhere.
Each partner offers its own certification course: Workplace Innovation (FIR), Productivity Management and Industrial Engineering (DMTMV), Tooling Management (WBA) and Lean Management Methods for Industry 4.0 (LEI). Project Coordinator Roman Senderek from FIR explains further: "Our provision has a modular structure in line with the four central subject areas, so we will be able to help German automotive manufacturers and suppliers who do business in Mexico in particular to provide their operations managers with continuing education and training. We also plan to target our provision to the specific needs of our customers and make the qualifications they will need to participate in the various courses available in advance via e-learning modules, for example."
The FIR certification course currently under development builds on the results of ELIAS, a successful joint project run by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research), which developed work-related learning concepts for a range of companies, including some from the automotive industry. This course is called "Chief Workplace Innovation Manager – shaping future-oriented workplaces, developing skills at work".
As part of the E-Mas programme, it is designed to give operations managers and personnel development officers the skills they need to create structures that encourage learning, help to implement those structures in practice and successfully integrate them into existing workflows. Participants will learn how to evaluate traditional and technology-enhanced work-related learning solutions in terms of what benefits they can offer in different applications, as well as how to implement them effectively.
Traditional types of learning to be considered would be, for example, coaching and mentoring programmes, learning stages or solutions with a more organisational focus, such as CIP teams and gemba walks. On the technology-enhanced side, things like wikis, social learning and the design of wizard systems that encourage learning come to the fore. The skills provided around "work-related learning and designing working environments that encourage learning" will enable participants to implement learning solutions for their production employees and significantly improve how the workforce learns on the job.
The course will also look at socio-cultural differences and the characteristics of the German-Mexican working relationship. Senderek has this to say: "The initial findings of our investigations indicate that cultural differences are one of the main challenges for German companies doing business in Mexico and can manifest in a very high turnover of staff, for example."
Project Coordinator Senderek, who has experience of Latin America, goes on to explain: "Creating awareness on both sides is one of the key prerequisites for successful cooperation between Germany and Latin America; this is where comparative management approaches can come in useful, which we will also cover in our course."
In addition, the FIR will address the systematic development of blended-learning continuing education offerings for export purposes, from the perspective of service research. Based on the application of the E-Mas continuing education programme, a general procedure model will be made available in the form of a guideline and a digital planning tool for other companies and institutions interested in exporting continuing education.