Knowledge Work in High Value Manufacturing: Preparing Graduates in an Innovative Industry-Based Learning Factory
PUBLICATION DATE: 3 March, 2025 PUBLICATION AUTHOR/S: Greg Hearn, Melinda Laundon & Penny WilliamsThe idea of a knowledge economy is a contested and politically complex concept. Its rise coincided with the evolution of new forms of capital apart from land, buildings, and equipment and an ongoing expansion of occupation categories and titles. AI engineer, Data Scientist, Cloud Architect, Podcaster, Influencer, Experience Designer and Social Media Manager are jobs that would baffle the nineteenth-century mind. They all rely on new forms of knowledge. Manufacturing is a relevant sector to examine the evolution of knowledge work because its roots stretch back to the Industrial Revolution and its future will involve a broad range of new disciplines. In this chapter, we describe a case study of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Hub, an innovative industry-based learning factory. We argue this is a distinctive experiment in industry-university relationships, that allows us to examine how different knowledge regimes come together to solve pressing industry problems. This creates the opportunity for different kinds of students to prepare themselves to be graduates in the knowledge economies they will soon face. We describe the history of the ARM Hub; how it operates as a learning factory; how it challenges conventional models of industry-university relationships; and the experimental pedagogical approaches that have promise for educating the graduates of tomorrow. We conclude with a critical examination of knowledge economies of the future and the challenges for graduates in negotiating that future.
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