Abstract
The circular economy (CE) transition demands a paradigm shift requiring to incorporate changes in manufacturing processes, business relationships, innovations. And professional skills. In particular, there is a growing demand for skills associated with developing circular business models and exploring innovative solutions derived from emerging digital technologies. The CE job market is highly heterogeneous, with individuals from different educational backgrounds who can work in numerous sectors. However, to date, the literature has offered few insights regarding the skills required for CE applied in manufacturing, especially in industrial sectors considered critical to advance CE initiatives, such as Textiles, Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and Automotive. Therefore, the research objective of this contribution is to explore, from a practitioner’s point of view, the current needs and already-in-place actions to align the skills and job profiles required for the circular transition in the textile, WEEE, and automotive sectors. This study relies on 6 interviews to collect empirical evidence in terms of job profiles, critical skills, and possible training programs already implemented to fill organizational demand. As a result, digital skills resulted to be important to monitor performances and track products across the value chain. This is pushed especially by the creation of DPPs that are entering all the sectors. Soft skills are considered essential especially to drive collaboration (both internally and externally) which is considered the key pillar under the creation of circular systems. Last, no specific job profiles are needed but those already existing need to be enhanced with CE-oriented knowledge.
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Acknowledgments
The project within which this study was conducted was partially supported by the European Education and Culture Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission under grant agreement No 101111684 (CERES project).
This study was carried out also within the MICS (Made in Italy – Circular and Sustainable) Extended Partnership and received funding from the European Union Next-Generation EU (PIANO NAZIONALE DI RIPRESA E RESILIENZA (PNRR) – MISSIONE 4 COMPONENTE 2, INVESTIMENTO 1.3 – D.D. 1551.11–10-2022, PE00000004). This manuscript reflects only the authors’ views and opinions, neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be considered responsible for them.
This study was also supported by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education.
Personnel – Brazil (CAPES) – Financing Code 001.
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Acerbi, F. et al. (2024). Market Needs for a Circular Transition: Implemented Practices and Required Skills. In: Thürer, M., Riedel, R., von Cieminski, G., Romero, D. (eds) Advances in Production Management Systems. Production Management Systems for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous Environments. APMS 2024. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 728. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71622-5_18
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