"The idea for this project, submitted to the Erasmus+ National Agency in the UK, arose from the fact that there is a lack of qualified personnel in the car body repair sector. Following a report from Boston Consulting Group, ""The European Aftermarket Landscape"", which says that ""the total market volume for the five analysed focus markets (Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain and Poland) is approximately 115 billion euros"", it is easy to understand the target for the impacts of CARBOREP. From that very same report, it is worth mentioning that ""The introduction of new vehicle materials such as aluminium, carbon and UV paint require special tools, instruments and increased training requirements as well. ""Once more, it is clear the need for the ECBRT professional; for a harmonised training solution for all the personnel working in this sector: the European Car Body Repair Technician. The project aimed to resolve the skills mismatch for the employers of companies involved in car body repair processes. CARBOREP has developed a harmonized training course for personnel involved in this activity, designed to satisfy the requirements of both large enterprises and SMEs in different European countries, and creating a European Car Body Repair Technician curriculum, associated training materials and assessment scheme.The consortium consisted of 4 partners. EWF is the European Federation for Welding, Joining and Cutting, with a Training and Qualification network covering 31 member countries that was essential in the implementation and dissemination of the CARBOREP results. The remaining partners were the welding and quality institutes of the UK (TWI), Portugal (ISQ), and Spain (CESOL), which have strong knowledge and expertise in training and qualification at a sector-based level. TWI acted as the Project Coordinator, in direct contact with the National Agency in the UK.The CARBOREP project addressed the lack of specific qualifications and training schemes available for personnel working in the vehicle repair and maintenance industry (specifically for car body repair) in Europe. By creating a high quality curriculum, which features state of the art technologies and manufacturing processes used in car body repair, CARBOREP provides a methodology by which personnel can demonstrate their competence and guarantee the quality of their work and enhance motor vehicle safety. CARBOREP is a harmonised training solution for all personnel working in the car body repair sector and enables local repair workshops and other independent operators to maintain currency with advancing manufacturing techniques and ensure vehicle repair and maintenance routines are performed correctly. This project will have a significant impact across Europe, because it created a professional profile (European Car Body Repair Technician - ECBRT) that covers a specific market need. The project gains even more relevance because the skills and qualification profile development was done at a European level, with a transnational scope, aligned with the European market needs, and then transferred to the national level. This contributes to achieving the European Union's targets and the objectives of the Erasmus+ program of increasing the labour market relevance of VET and reducing skills mismatches and shortages.In addition, and based on the number of companies that work in motor vehicle repair in Europe, there is presently a high need for new VET-content for the training, qualification and certification activities in this field. Common VET-qualifications for personnel working in the car body repair industry, currently offered on a local or national level, are not able to deliver a systematic approach to VET for this occupation. CARBOREP closes this gap and delivers a European qualification standard, improves the quality of the VET-system by incorporating common European tools (e.g. RPL, Learning Outcomes, EQF, ECVET), promoting the transparency, recognition of competences and mutual synergies between I-VET and C-VET. The CARBOREP outputs are designed to boost the skills capital of this sector, important due to its market size, and support an industry-based skills network in order to promote the further need-oriented skills development. CARBOREP fostered the involvement of different stakeholders in making VET more responsive to the needs of the labour market. Having identified the above-mentioned needs, this project created a harmonised training guideline featuring a modular curriculum built with Learning Outcomes, training materials in 3 languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese) and design of the assessment for the trainees. All of these results help mitigate the identified EU market shortfalls."

"REASON FOR THE PROJECT:The risk of failing to implement the requirements of the European Regulations (Regulation (eu) nº 305/2011of the European Parliament and of the Cuncil), is mandatory from the 1st of July 2014 onwards, is very high since SMEs in the metal construction sector will deal with changes in their working procedures. This is foreseen to lead to an increase of costs for SMEs and consequently to an increasing number of internal difficulties to SMEs conforming to EN 1090. These requirements mean additional efforts on all companies involved in construction and building of metal structures.The present project intends to help minimise this situation by developing a harmonized training course adjusted to market (employment) requirements.AIMS & OBJECTIVES: The project aims at avoiding unfulfillment of mandatory EN standards by European metal working companies. For that it has been developed an harmonized curriculum for personnel involved in the implementation of the EN 1090 in industry, focusing not only in large enterprises but also in SMEs in different European countries. Also, a set of educational materials for the training of personnel involved in EN 1090 implementation have been definited and developed.CONSORTIUM: The consortium is constituted by the welding institutes of these countries, which have strong knowledge and expertise in training and qualification at a sector-based level. All partners also have plenty of experience in the implementation and training of EN standards. OUTCOMES: The objectives have been achieved through the definition of a harmonized curriculum for the training of personnel involved in the fabrication and assembly of metal structures based on the set of standards EN 1090 (""EN 1090-1: Requirements for conformity assessment for structural components"", ""EN 1090-2: Technical requirements for the execution of steel structures"" and ""EN 1090-3: Technical requirements for the execution of aluminium structures"").IMPACT: EN 1090 has been created mandatory demands for all that is related with building metalic structures, including personnel qualification and certification. This will have impact in the European metal working sector which accounts for over 87€ billion of value added to the European economy, as well as over 2 million jobs."

Shortage of welders at European and world labor market, perception of welding as a “dirty” job that negatively influences young people when choosing their future profession and lack of uniformity of welder competence depending on the country of origin for one and the same welding process were foundations and starting points for this project. The main goal of the project is improvement of educational system for welders. This is relevant for several reasons: 1. We need to design educational programs that will harmonize international qualifications with national ones, that will be applicable in different educational systems and whose results will be alignment of acquired competences for one and the same level of education. 2. We need to modernize the educational system in a program, methodological and technological way and thus bring it closer to people in need of education.3. Competences obtained in such a way will make provision for direct inclusion of completed welders into the production process, and lifelong system of education will contribute to qualitative and quantitative improvement in their level of knowledge and quality of life.Specific project objectives are: 1. Development of European framework curricula for MMA, MIG, MAG, FCAW, MCAW and TIG welding processes with supporting teaching media.2. Development of welding networking site,3. Development of new methodology for welder training with introduction of Virtual Welding Training Systems (VWTS) into welder training. Partner consortium consisting of European welding federation (EWF) and national welding associations (CESOL, IIS Progress), vocational school (IOŠ), welding company (KMK) and institution for education of adults (Učilište ULJANIK) is completely competent to create the above mentioned intellectual outputs. SVS – Swiss welding association, National center for external evaluation of education from Croatia and Croatian Welding Society joined the consortium during project implementation, strengthened it with their competences and added new value to project results. The applied methodology of the project was, because of its international importance, step by step to project results. All work packages in the project are broken into following sequence: initiation - specification of demands through analysis and synthesis; planning and designing; implementation; control and integration; validation through testing and correction of mistakes, project results, dissemination.All partners have fully contributed to project results. It needs to be emphasized that this contribution greatly exceeds the volume of activities set in the proposal.Project results are:1. Framework European curricula for 6 welding processes and two levels of qualifications. Partners created 18 framework European vocational curricula for EQF qualification levels 2 and 3. In accordance with the applied methodology, along with curricula that are the basic intellectual output partners also developed occupational standards and qualification standards for above mentioned profiles. As an added value to the project we introduced external evaluation of welder education, which represents an innovative approach to evaluation of welder education. Halfway through project implementation, a new methodology of curricula writing was adopted that was promoted by EWF with the help of CEDEFOP. Consortium designed curricula according to this new methodology as well, so future users have the possibility of choosing the concept which suits them best.2. The online platform for welders enables networking of welders of all levels and profiles. Added values are parts self-learning and self-assessment that help welders to learn and assess their knowledge in an interactive way.3. New methodology in welder education is adjusted to modern technology and is applicable in the long run in lifelong education of welders by introduction of VWTS. Project results will have a significant impact on raising the quality of welding, popularizing the welding profession, making sure that companies and state institutions become aware of the importance of welders and on helping young people choose welding as their future occupation. Welders of all profiles will be given an asset in the form of a welding networking site to help them with education, upskilling and keeping up with the latest developments.The Online platform www.weldchance.com will be set up on the EWF server, which will strengthen the impact of project results and their sustainability at European level, bearing in mind that EWF covers a wide area and has international impact with their network of members.