Project objectives:Working in the Automotive industry requires special knowledge that is different to other industries. Assuring quality in Automotive has grown to a huge challenge and competition factor driven mainly by the permanent cost pressure in a mass market that is increasingly confronted with the safety criticality of various mechatronic systems and subsystems. Automotive companies have realized the necessity of integrating the development and manufacturing processes significantly more this is done in other sectors. Automotive organisations conformed there is a gap between knowledge which is needed for working as a professional in the Automotive industry and knowledge which is educated by VET. Bridging this gap is a necessity.The project is innovative because only few schools and universities address the special Automotive methods and techniques within their curriculum. As a consequence the Automotive industry faces a lot of challenges to find workers with the right knowledge, especially for countries outside Germany and France. A lot of basic training is needed before workers can participate on the right level within product development, process improvement and quality management.Target groups:This project targeted Automotive manufacturers & suppliers, Automotive associations, and VET bodies. The following target groups were identified:1 - Students of initial VET (secondary level).2 - Individuals working in Automotive manufacturing and quality support (secondary level).3 - Engineers working in Automotive in product development, quality management or process engineering (tertiary level). 4 - Teachers and trainers of the foundation level (working for the Automotive clusters and initial VET secondary level).Intellectual outputs: A survey has been carried out among automotive companies and automotive clusters in different contries to develop a needs analysis. Based on the needs analysis two skill sets have been composed which were the basis for development of training content. A comprehensive set of training content has been developed consisting of powerpoints, text book and exercise book. The powerpoints and text books are available in four languages. All training content can be downloaded freely from the project website (www.automotiveengineer.eu). Educational institutes can use this content for training and education. The text books and exercise book will also be published by the LSSA (under ISBN) by the end of 2017. Pilot trainings: During this project in total 15 teachers, 112 students (VET level 3-4) and 48 professionals working in Automotive have participated in several pilot training sessions organised by the consortium (Netherlands, Austria, France). The train-the-trainer sessions were delivered by consultants/trainers with over 10 years experience in the Automotive. They trained other trainers including 2 VET-trainers who trained 112 students at VET level 3-4. The consortium develop a uniform certification standard across Europe using the existing ECQA learning and certification platform. Students and professionals who want to receive an official certificate as 'Automotive Engineer' can apply for an exam at the ECQA. 70 people subscribed for examination.Results and impact envisaged:The results delivered within the scope of this project is a comprehensive and coherent training. This training has been conducted several times in the second period of the project. In total 165 students and professionals have been trained. Many of them passed the exam and received a European certificate for the job role 'Automotive Engineer'. Several ROC’s have included this training in their program for the coming years. Several Automotive companies and cluster organisations have addressed the need for this curriculum. It is therefore expected that after this project these companies will enlist individuals for following this training. In the longer term this will contribute to find workers in the Automotive with the right knowledge and expertise.

The aim of the project is to enable the realization of the aims of the Blueprint, namely the delivery of human capital solutions to supply chain SMEs through the establishment of an Automotive Sector Skills Alliance covering all levels of the value chain (vehicle production, automotive suppliers and automotive sales and aftermarket services). The deliverables produced unitl now are here: https://www.project-drives.eu/en/results. A SSA will be established to build upon the GEAR 2030 work, whilst proposing concrete and practical initiatives to address skills challenges, in particular through facilitating mobility of workers within automotive. Through this approach, a sustainable cooperation on skills development across the value chain and through concrete initiatives will be realized through a project with three distinct aims:1. Harness existing and proven Skills Frameworks in European countries (UK, GE), modernize them to cope with future automotive trends (using expert analysis companies), and look at the deployment into new countries (like e.g. PT, SK, RO, SP, CZ etc.).2. Enable mutual recognition of awards between formal and informal automotive education, VET and universities, and across Europe in order to enhance the use and success of government funded mobility programmes such as Erasmus+ KA1.3. Implementation of common European automotive skills umbrella and integration of existing skills frameworks (Sector skills council, ECQA, AQUA, SkillMan, Skills Passport, etc.) including pilot trainings.4. Project aims to build on the successful deployment of the Apprenticeship Marketplace by enhancing its effectiveness for automotive job seekers. An IT infrastructure will be implemented to detail common job requirements, which will be available for job seeking, training providers namely universities, VET providers and more, as well as forming a market place job offers on local, nation and European levels.Through the realization of the four aims, GEAR 2030’s strategy pilot implementation can be delivered and built upon through the Blueprint SSA.