Learning factories for future oriented research and education in manufacturing Eberhard Abele (1) a, *, George Chryssolouris (1) b , Wilfried Sihn (1) c , Joachim Metternich a , Hoda ElMaraghy (1) d , Günther Seliger (1) e , Gunilla Sivard f , Waguih ElMaraghy (1) d , Vera Hummel g , Michael Tisch a , Stefan Seifermann a a Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW), TU Darmstadt, Germany b Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems and Automation (LMS), University of Patras, Greece c Institute of Management Science (IMW), Vienna University of Technology, Austria d Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) Centre, University of Windsor, Canada e Department of Machine Tools and Factory Management (IWF), TU Berlin, Germany f Department of Production Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden g ESB Business School, Reutlingen-University, Germany 1. Introduction 1.1. Motivation Manufacturing remains a key wealth generating activity for any nation. In Europe alone, manufacturing accounts for more than 21% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [157]. In order to reflect this importance, the promotion of manufacturing excellence will be a strategic target in the years to come. Manufacturing itself faces rapid advances in production related technologies, tools and techniques. Thus, manufacturing enters a new era, where blue-collar workers and engineers will need novel life-long learning schemes to keep up with these advances. Manufacturing education is regarded as a major driver to build the required new generations of ‘knowledge employees’ in manufacturing [168] (Fig. 1). However, manufacturing teaching and training have neither kept pace with the advances in manufacturing technology, nor with the demands from the labor market. The current practice is deficient in providing manufacturing employees with a continuous delivery of engineering competencies and a strong multi- disciplinary educational and training background. In fact, tradi- tional teaching methods show limited effectiveness in developing employees’ and students’ competencies for current and future manufacturing environments [58]. In addition, the lack of soft skills has been widely recognized by employers [289]. To effectively address the emerging challenges in manufactur- ing education and skill demands, the educational paradigm in manufacturing needs to be revised. Modern concepts of training, industrial learning and knowledge transfer schemes are required that can contribute to improving the performance of manufactur- ing [12,65,168]. These new concepts need to take into account that: (a) manufacturing as a subject cannot be treated efficiently in a classroom alone [65,158,246], and (b) industry can only evolve through the adoption and implementation of new research results in industrial operation [246]. CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 66 (2017) 803–826 A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Available online 17 July 2017 Keywords: Learning factory Education Training Manufacturing research Competence development A B S T R A C T Learning factories present a promising environment for education, training and research, especially in manufacturing related areas which are a main driver for wealth creation in any nation. While numerous learning factories have been built in industry and academia in the last decades, a comprehensive scientific overview of the topic is still missing. This paper intends to close this gap by establishing the state of the art of learning factories. The motivations, historic background, and the didactic foundations of learning factories are outlined. Definitions of the term learning factory and the corresponding morphological model are provided. An overview of existing learning factory approaches in industry and academia is provided, showing the broad range of different applications and varying contents. The state of the art of learning factories curricula design and their use to enhance learning and research as well as potentials and limitations are presented. Conclusions and an outlook on further research priorities are offered. © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of CIRP. Fig. 1. Changing competence profiles in manufacturing. * Corresponding author. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/cirp/default.asp http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cirp.2017.05.005 0007-8506/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of CIRP.