Abstract:

The ICT-Tex project is an Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance aiming to improve the competencies in information technology (ICT) for people working in the field of the Textile and Clothing Industry (TCI). This will be done by developing syllabuses that will be provided on an online platform, made available to all interested parties on the project website.

The ICT-Tex project is a cooperation between 12 European partners forming a balanced group of universities, companies and other interested parties.

The project responds to the need for industry executives, especially those who can work with CAD, CAM, CAE and PLM systems requiring a higher level of ICT skills. The curriculum of "Information Technology in Design of Textile and Clothing", which is to be created, aims precisely at providing knowledge and skills for engineering design and production of textiles and clothing on programmable machines. For the curriculum to be as responsive as possible to the requirements of the industry, the project supports the development of a survey and a preliminary needs analysis among European companies to specify their needs. The long-term experience of the project partners in the training of specialists, as well as the results of the survey, allows for the development of a curriculum that will be in line with the requirements of the Textile and Clothing Industry.

As a result of the survey and mapping of the needs, the concrete subjects of the courses are decided. These are within eight fixed themes covering a broad range of textile disciplines, being Design and Production of Knitwear; Design and Production of Woven Fabrics; Design and Production of Apparel; Design and Production of Technical and Smart Textiles; Industrial Engineering, Quality Control and management; and Finishing, Printing and functionalization; Entrepreneurship and Digital Skills.

From the survey performed, 63 people from TCI replied, of which 40% had a department for research & innovation, and 19% was in the process to create such a department, showing the large need for textile experts that can work in such departments.
Concerning the ICT skills, 32% believe their employees have the needed competencies, while 57% think they only have partially the required skills, with most companies (48%) only assigning themselves to have an average integration of ICT in their processes.

A MOODLE platform is selected to make the developed courses available for on-line self-study on the ICT-Tex and AUTEX websites.

The curricula and syllabuses developed within the ICT-TEX project will be openly available on the project website for any professional in the Textile and Clothing Industry having the need to improve his/her skills in information technology, more specifically in one of the five topics worked on in this project. The courses will become available in the year 2022.

Keywords:

Textile higher education, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), online courses, textile and clothing industry.