Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Procedia Manufacturing 9 (2017) 9 – 16
7th Conference on Learning Factories, CLF 2017
A systematic approach for designing learning environments for energy efficiency in industrial production Eberhard Abele, Dominik Flum*, Nina Strobel Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW), Otto -Berndt-Str. 2, 64287 Darmstadt
Abstract
Energy efficiency has been recognized in many manufacturing companies as an area of activity for cost savings and for environmental protection. Barriers, however, exist among others in the training of the employees. While at least larger companies have specialists and specialized departments, a holistic implementation is only possible with the involvement of all employees. The non-visibility and complexity of energy flows are challenging to impart knowledge illustratively. Furthermore, energy efficiency does not only require disciplinary but also interdisciplinary knowledge to exploit the energy efficiency potentials beyond the sy stem boundaries of a factory. By these challenges, the design of learning environments has special significance. This paper presents a systematic approach for the development of learning environments for energy efficiency in the industrial production. Depe nding on the addressed target group, the competences to be imparted are methodically transferred to design features of a learning environment. The result is an effective and target group-oriented development process. ©©2017 by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license 2016Published The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). of scientific the scientific committee 7th Conference on Learning Peer-review under responsibility Peer review under responsibility of the committee of the of 7ththe Conference on Learning FactoriesFactories. Keywords: Energy efficiency; Learning Factory; Action-oriented learning
1. Introduction As a result of the inception of the Paris Agreement on 4 November 2016, the decisions of the Paris Convention on Climate Change are now reality. States are henceforth required to develop action plans, how the binding international objectives can be achieved [1]. Germany has adopted the Climate Protection Plan 2050 in this context. Among other things, this includes the optimization of the continuous transfer of knowledge between universities and industry, so
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-6151-16-20110; fax: +49-6151-16-20087. E-mail address:
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2351-9789 © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 7th Conference on Learning Factories doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2017.04.001
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that highly energy-efficient technologies are increasingly used in practice [2]. Action-oriented learning environments like Learning Factories are a key aspect to make the transfer of knowledge efficient [3]. Since energy efficiency is applied at all levels of the factory system, the learning environment must also reflect the corresponding hierarchical level. Not always, however, it is necessary to build a complete factory or a complete production system in order to offer the participants of a training course a appropriate learning environment. If sub-aspects like possibilities for increasing the energy efficiency of cross-sectional technologies (e.g. compressed air systems, electric drives, …) are considered, it will often be sufficient to use more compact learning stations . Developers of trainings and workshops in the area of energy efficiency have to decide how exactly they should design the physical learning environment. The approach presented in this paper supports developers in the progress of designing new learning environments. On the other hand, the approach can also be used for the assessment of already existing learning environments with regard to their suitability for training the desired target groups and contents. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1. Competence oriented learning and experiential education In the area of energy efficiency, it is particularly important not only to have theoretical knowledge, but to know methods how to apply it to the real application. Furthermore, it is crucial that people who are implementing energy efficiency measures in companies have the necessary motivation. Thus in trainings which are conducted in the learning environment or at a specific learning station, competences have to be generated instead of pure scientific knowledge. Competence models are today a key component of the personnel strategies of most companies and state of the art in the area of further education [4]. On the other hand, it is important in the field of energy efficiency to have at least a basic knowledge of the most important energy conversion technologies and to understand the physical principles of energy supply. Physical learning environments can make an important contribution to the visualization and linking of the theoretical content with practice, thus contributing to a higher effectiveness of learning [5]. Personal practical experiences ensure that learners can transfer acquired knowledge to their personal everyday life [6]. For this reason, it is important to make learning environments as practical as possible and at the same time to abstract them so that the learner can concentrate on the questions that are to be conveyed. In the approach presented in this paper, a guide is drawn up for the design of practice-oriented learning environments on the basis of the subject to be mediated and the external boundary conditions. 2.2 Learning environments Action-oriented learning environments facilitate the acquisition of competencies through a self-learning process. Especially in production technology, these practical learning environments are imple mented within the framework of Learning Factories. The difference to other teaching and learning formats is the realistic and changeable production process where not only lecturing, but learning methods like realistic simulations of production systems are utilized to enhance the trainees’s learning experience. This allows for a production -technological competency obtainment in a learning environment that is close to the realistic work process. However, in case of energy efficiency, the challenge is to create the balancing act between the illustration of energy and the prevention of realistic working conditions [7]. For example, energy flows like heat or electrical current are not visible and have to be perceptible, on the one hand, for a lasting knowledge transfer. On the other hand, the processes must not be too abstracted to achieve the transfer into practice. The development of learning environments for energy efficiency is therefore a particular challenge. The proposed approach is based on the findings of [8] and [9] but is focusing on physical learning environments particularly for the topic of energy efficiency. The user friendliness is increased since no didactic knowledge is required for using the guide. Instead the LE³ (Learning Environment for Energy Efficiency)-Guide is especially addressing technical experts and planners (e.g. developers of energy efficient technologies, production planners).
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3. The LE³-Gui de The LE³-Guide (Fig. 1) offers a systematic approach for developing target-group oriented learning environments for energy efficiency. The basic idea of the LE³-Guide is to provide a learning environment design which suits the transfer of required knowledge for a certain target group of trainees. Starting point is the designer of the intended learning environment. In case of energy efficiency, learning environments have mainly the objective to impart optimization measures to a certain target group. The designer of the learning environment is therefore in many occasions not a didactics specialist but an engineer who is well-qualified in energy efficiency topics but not in disseminating knowledge. This is where the guide starts by giving the developer support in considering didactic principles. In the end, however, the developer has the choice whether and how he would implement the suggestions of the guide.
Learning Environment Designer 1 Questionnaire I: General Conditions
Purpose
Target Group
Resources
6
2 Basic Type of LE
Learning Objectives 3 & Design Features
Check List 5 Requirements Catalogue
Questionnaire II: Learning 4 Objectives & Design Features
Prioritized Learning Objectives
Features & Specifications
Fig. 1: LE³-Guide
To ensure a high level of user friendliness all the required information are gathered through questionnaires. There are two crucial inputs from the user side. The first questionnaire focuses on the general conditions whereas the second questionnaire is specifying the details. According to the answers given by the user, the intended learning environment is classified into a category that is associated with learning objectives and design features. The individual steps of the LE³-Guide are presented below. 3.1. Questionnaire I – General Conditions In many occasions, not all of the general conditions are obvious to t he learning environment designer. Especially the general objectives and the target group are oftentimes vague in the beginning of the design process. Therefore, a questionnaire is part of the guideline helping to clarify these aspects. It is the first step of the LE³-Guide that supports the designer in defining the fundamentals of the learning environment. These are composed by the following aspects: purpose, target group, budget, time frame and spatial resources . Additionally, the questionnaire draws attention to
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aspects that should be taken into consideration for the design. Depending on the results of the questionnaire, the intended learning environment is assigned to one of pre-defined, basic types of learning environments. 3.2. Categories of learning environments The basic types of learning environment describe categorical classifications of potential learning environments. Each type of a learning environment is related, on the one hand, to certain learning objectives that should be covered for the identified target group. On the other hand, possible (design) features of the learning environmen t are proposed to the designer. For that, four general purposes for learning environments were determined: Fascination, Sensitization, Analyzation and Transformation. A fascinating learning environment has the main objective to attract attention. The focus is mainly on a single aspect. The content is easy to understand and triggers a wo w effect. In contrast, a sensitizing learning environment strives to point out the importance of an issue. A wow effect is to be generated too, but is more influenced by the content. With a learning environment for analyzations, a deeper understanding of the content should be established. For that, the trainees try out theoretical parts of a trainings course directly in the learning environment. The direct application of the training content in the industrial practice is the main goal of a learning environment for transformation. To increase energy efficiency many interactions in a system must be considered. Therefore, not only a deep understanding of the content is necessary, but also a linking of the aspects. It is equally important that the training participants are empowered to pass on the findings to colleagues. A further dimension for classifying a learning environment is the target group that is trained. It is mainly dete rmined by the prior knowledge. Alien to subject
Beginner
Advanced
Expert
Fascination
A1
A1
B2
B3
Sensitization
B1
B1
B2
B3
C1
C2
C2
D1
D2
Analyzation Transformation Fig. 2: Learning environment type determination matrix
According to the two dimensions, eight general types of learning environments were defined (Fig. 2). In case of contrary objectives (e.g. inhomogeneous target groups), several categories can be considered according to the first questionnaire. In this case, it must be decided whether it might be useful to integrate several different learning stations with different degrees of detail into the learning environment. Another possibility is to design individual learning stations in such a way that they can be converted from one category to the o ther and thus adapted to the respective target group. T able 1. Basic types of learning environment and relation to results of questionnaire Basic T ype
Description
Achieved points / answered questions
A1
Basically draw attention to the topic for people who have little to no prior knowledge
< 1,3
B1
Affect day-to-day behavior of people who have little or no prior knowledge
< 1,7
B2
Draw attention & affect day-to-day behavior of people who already have prior knowledge
