Digital Workforce Skills from Factory Skills

What if working in a factory could create the skills to understand the technology
of the information age? The following is a breakdown of a proposed online course designed for
those who work or have worked in factories and related industries:

Supervisory Data and Control (SCADA)

SCADA systems are systems that monitor and control plant and equipment in a wide range of
industries, from manufacturing industry to the oil and gas industry. People who worked in
factories can visualize how this technology would work or may have experienced how this
technology works.
SCADA systems incorporate visual elements such as animation to depict how factories are
working. From this basis, other applications of the Information Age can be introduced to
students, such as Programmable Automation Controllers (automation controllers that
incorporate higher level functions), distributed control systems, as well as other related
technologies.

Systems Engineering

By being in a factory, one readily sees the interrelated complexity of the system. Systems
engineering allows the factory staff to analyze and plan the factory information by means of
tools such as SCADA and human machine interface (HMI). The goal of the online course will be
to introduce systems engineering the students.

Technology Training

Taking factory skills and turning them into the skills to learn automation and other digital
workforce skills is the goal of the proposed online course. This is done by means of online
learning. The training processes is unique, but the learning tools are the aspects of the following
standardized technologies that are often familiar to those working in factories and are capable of
bridging the gap to understanding other digital workforce technologies:

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition): A computer system for gathering and
analyzing real time data in factories, oil fields, and related types of locations.

Programmable Logic Controller (PLC): Industrial digital computer which has been
ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, especially assembly lines.

From the above, the following technologies will be introduced as ways to model factory
processes:

Unified Modeling Language (UML): A general-purpose, developmental, modeling language

that provides a standard way to visualize the design of a system.
From UML, system engineering is introduced and the following modeling language:

Systems Modeling Language (SysML): A general-purpose modeling language for systems

engineering applications.

For those that work in industries such as steel mills and related industries, the following design
automation technology is introduced because of its analogies to metalwork:

Simulated Annealing: A method for solving unconstrained and bound-constrained optimization

problems.