Abstract:

Currently, the labour market is undergoing changes not only in the technology of production processes, but also in the knowledge and experience needs of university graduates for industry. The new legislative framework on quality assurance in higher education in Slovakia also imposes new tasks and procedures on higher education institutions themselves. The higher education institution is primarily responsible for ensuring the quality of education and must lay down the policies for the establishment, approval, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and modification of study programmes, the procedure for verifying the implementation of the latest knowledge and trends in the content of study programmes, the method of involving representatives of students and other interested parties in the establishment and modification of study programmes, the linking of the study programme to the relevant level of the national qualification framework, the rules for the assessment of students’ creative activities, the rules for examining students’ initiatives and the procedures for verifying sufficient spatial, material, technical, information and personnel provision of study programmes.
Additive manufacturing (AM) is process of joining materials to make parts from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing and formative manufacturing methodologies. AM has proved itself in recent years to give manufacturers and supply chains a vast amount of flexibility and has the potential to become the dominant manufacturing technique for certain applications. Organizations have continued to integrate additive manufacturing into their production operations to mitigate supply chain risks, enhance product design flexibility, and reduce manufacturing costs. AM will continue to build industrial acceptance, and it will start to be discovered on a larger industrial scale. Training and upskilling will be a core component of this. Demand for training and education in this segment is expected to continue to grow.
In this paper, the curriculum design of AM technologies course within manufacturing engineering study program is presented and detailed. The course design is the result of cooperation between Faculty of Technology of Technical University in Zvolen and Faculty of Engineering of Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra.

Keywords:

Curriculum design, additive manufacturing, course.