Possibilities for widespread automation in the 2020s, brought forward by advances in robotics and artificial intelligence, have started disrupting the job market at scale, also the linked training-and-updating market, and the emerging market for performance support/augmentation. A worryingly-large professional skills gap exists and is predicted to widen between tasks and job profiles in ample supply today (eg as routine-isable blue or white collar jobs) but at risk through full- or partial-automation, and tomorrow’s work tasks and job profiles that are in high demand through and beyond automation (eg high-experience, high-flexibility, high-knowledge and performance-focused jobs).
WEKIT, short for Wearable Experience for Knowledge Intensive Training, tries to tackle this professional skills gap using innovative real-time learning methodology and training technology to support professional development in ways that speed the diffusion of new bodies of knowledge (eg from pioneers and inventors, to early adopters and 'Industry 4.0') helping to make knowledge-intensive jobs more fulfilling, ergonomic, efficient, and effective, specifically targeting industrial training on-the-job. Funded under the Horizon 2020 programme for three years from December 2015 to November 2018, WEKIT developed and tested a wearable hard- and software solution to this knowledge-diffusion problem. The solution combines recording human expertise live and in situ from skilled experts, to then map and provide extracted instruction to novice learners or to remind infrequent performers, using the same wearable solution (or scaled-down versions thereof), all along the way supported by analytics providing feedback on actual levels of performance.
Using Augmented Reality and Smart Glasses, WEKIT effectively brings textbooks to life using digital audio-visual data overlaid on the physical environment, for example in the form of animations. The WEKIT.one soft- and hardware system shows the trainee what to do through the eyes of the expert, allowing the trainee to learn by experience rather than simply reading about it or watching a video tutorial. It also allows an expert to create instructions easily for themselves (as an aide memoire) or for others - by capturing performance using the wearable sensor framework.
WEKIT brings together 13 partner organisations representing academia and industry from six countries in Europe to build a ground-breaking, industrial-strength learning technology platform and unique methodology for capturing expert experience and sharing it with trainees in the process of enabling immersive, in-situ, and intuitive learning.
WEKIT mobilises its community of stakeholders – WEKIT.club – to roadmap pathways for the use of Technology-Enhanced Learning in changing industrial landscapes. The technology platform developed in the project – WEKIT.one – based on a thorough analysis of industrial needs and validated through user tests will enhance human abilities to acquire procedural knowledge by providing a smart system that directs attention to where it is most needed. Thanks to WEKIT, new smarter products and services will significantly improve workflows, enhancing (re)training of workers whose skill sets need upgrading after ‘Industry 4.0’.
The project objectives are:
•to develop an open technology platform for Augmented Reality experience based on open standards and licenses
•to research how we identify, acquire and exploit skills valued by industry and based on that research, to develop and evaluate a conceptual framework for capturing workplace experience, combining it with technical documentation
•to augment training in situ with live expert guidance, a tacit learning experience and a re-enactment of the expert
•to create a roadmap for Augmented Reality experience-based learning together with the community ensuring high take-up by early adopters in the industry
