Industry 4.0 Skills in Industrial Engineering Courses: Contributing to the Role of Universities Toward Sustainable Development

The job profiles of smart industries and services are based on skills for Industry 4.0 environments. Accordingly, multiple stakeholders, such as Industrial Engineering courses, companies, and governments, need to provide educational responses based on the development of these skills. Therefore, our study aims to (i) identify the major Industry 4.0 skills required by smart industries and supply chain companies; (ii) assess the knowledge level of scholars teaching Industry 4.0 in Industrial Engineering courses in Brazil; (iii) assess the skills development level of undergraduates in Brazil; (iv) propose an Industry 4.0 skills development framework for industrial engineers; and (v) contribute to the role of the universities as anchor institutions for sustainable development. Our research uses a mixed-method approach to achieve this. First, our results show that 19 technologies are predominant for Industry 4.0 skills. Second, our study reveals 17 technological, 12 digital, five computational, and 31 soft skills as the most important for Industrial Engineering undergraduate students. Third, our research also finds a gap concerning university teachers’ perceptions of Industry 4.0 skills development during undergraduate courses. Fourth, the respondents (scholars teaching in universities) point to a lack of proficiency in Industry 4.0 topics for teaching and fully transferring them. Fifth, we propose a framework based on socio-technical systems and stakeholder theory, grouping the 65 skills. Finally, we used the results to reflect on the Brazilian universities’ role as anchor institutions in their environments, co-creating with surrounding stakeholders the pathways to sustainable development from Industry 4.0.