Postgraduate programme prepares engineers for Industry 4.0

‘Smart Operations and Maintenance in Industry’ is aimed at engineers with backgrounds in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, ICT, Electronics, and related fields. Koenraad perfectly fits this target audience. He received his education as an Aerospace Engineer at TU Delft and currently works at BMT Aerospace.

“BMT is a group of companies that primarily produce metal parts for various industrial applications,” he explains. “We manufacture, among other things, casings for MRI scanners, housings for ASML machines, and gearboxes for car transmissions. In Aerospace, we mainly focus on gears for aircraft, including steel and titanium components. For example, we make most of the racks for the slats of Airbus planes.”

Koenraad is primarily involved in preparing his employer for the fourth industrial revolution. “Our machine park still includes many machines that are fifteen or twenty years old and are being replaced gradually. We cannot simply buy completely new equipment from just any company, as it might not be compatible with our machines. That is our big challenge: we want to evolve towards a new smart factory environment, but gradually, not with a big bang.”

Structure and the proper frameworks

At BMT, Koenraad noticed that in order to achieve this goal, a lot of planning and preparation is required, and he realized he was missing some knowledge and experience. “In that way, this programme was exactly what I needed,” he says. “I had done quite a bit of self-study, but I still lacked structure, some depth and guidance. And I definitely found that in the postgraduate programme.”

The courses on Digital Twins and Monitoring and Prognostics particularly caught Koenraad’s attention. “Because I was already working on these topics at the company, and the knowledge I gained was almost immediately applicable. You see, some of our machines still use floppy disks and have no Ethernet. So, you must install sensors yourself, log the data, put it into a database, and apply the right algorithms. This leads to applications like predictive maintenance. Those are all things I now have a solid knowledge base in.”

Approximately three-quarters of the programme consists of theoretical lessons given on-site, but they can also be followed online. “I attended almost everything on-site, not only because I find it adds value but also because it was practically feasible for me. I work in Oostkamp and I live in Zulte, so attending classes in Kortrijk and Brugge was very doable.”

A quarter of the programme consisted of practical sessions, especially in Monitoring and Prognostics. “We would, for example, analyse sensor data and then perform a spectrum analysis. It was no easy subject matter and it involved fairly advanced mathematics, but I found it extremely interesting and educational. For the Smart Factory Design module, we had several workshops on the design software used to create a factory layout. That’s also where I learned that my laptop was actually not powerful enough to run the software properly (laughs).”

Definitely recommended

So far, Koenraad has not recommended the programme to colleagues or acquaintances, but there is a simple reason for that, he says. “You need a fairly specific profile for this postgraduate, with an interest in IT, sensors, and modelling. These people are not very common. Otherwise, I would definitely recommend the programme. Beware, it does come with a significant effort. There are not only the classes to attend but also the assignments and the exams. It requires a serious commitment, but the end result is more than worth it.”