Industry 4.0 Train the Trainer workshop

A man stands by a paper easel talking while two seated women and another man, standing, look on. — Matt Earnest (at left), the director of the Learning Factory and the Center for High Performance Manufacturing, watches as Tony Saade (standing at right), the owner of Roanoke-based PrintAbility3D, speaks during an Industry 4.0 Train the Trainer workshop at the Roanoke Center. Photos by Diane Deffenbaugh for Virginia Tech.

Matt Earnest, director of the Learning Factory and the Center for High Performance Manufacturing, and Scott Weimer, who leads the Roanoke Center, recently led an Industry 4.0 Train the Trainer workshop for local industries.

The free workshop is the first in a series of trainings planned in Roanoke, the New River Valley, and Lynchburg as part of a GO Virginia-funded Automated-Connected-Electrified (ACE) Workforce project.

“Industry 4.0” is a term used to describe today’s manufacturing environment that incorporates smart technologies and the Internet to better connect and automate the industrial process.

A series of sessions on topics such as leading through change and the principles of Lean, prepared participants to take their knowledge back to their workplaces to be customized to best fit their needs.