Didactical considerations for further education learning factories: a three case study

Industrial upskilling becomes increasingly essential as higher skill requirements and workforce scarcity spreadthroughout the manufacturing industry. While hiring and consulting strategies often require a significantinvestment of time and expense before seeing performance improvement or low knowledge absorption, theupskilling of in-house workers often results in an immediate, long-term benefit for companies. However,industrial upskilling strategies have often underperformed due to a misalignment with the learning requirementsfor the enrolled workers. Learning factories have shown promising results, but the way to teach and facilitatelearning still needs to be tailored for this industrial upskilling. This article investigates how upskilling worksin three learning factories under the MADE Learning Factory Initiative. The study examines the didacticaldimension compared to the adaptability and authenticity of the technology used during instruction. The resultsshow that the learning factories’ dimensions must be considered together with the didactics to ensure authenticity,adaptability and learning. Lastly, the article discusses balancing these considerations with the targeted industriallearners based on lessons learned from the MADE Learning Factory Initiative.