New trends in higher education for a thinner approach to technological needs of manufacturing companies

摘要

The High Performance Manufacturing Group is established and grows from the 80's until now within the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). The group's work focuses on teaching and research on manufacturing processes, primarily: metal removal processes, EDM, laser-processing techniques and grinding. To develop the investigations, the group has a workshop equipped with the latest technology machines manufactured by nearby companies of the machine tool sector. Furthermore, the workshop makes use of instrumentation systems for forces, temperatures or other parameters acquisition, in order to obtain the maximum amount of information from each test. With the objective of reducing the gap between industry and academic-scientific fields, it has been recently established the Machine Tool Unit. This initiative aims to provide advanced training in the field of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Technology. For this purpose, the unit gives strong theoretical formation along with practical training in companies and/or technological canters. Classes are taught both by own staff of the university as by external agents from research centers who develop R & D + i activities.