ENGINEER'S COMPETENCES IN THE CONTEXT OF 4.0 INDUSTRY AND SUSTAINABILITY PARADIGMS
Industry 4.0 introduces technological innovations that provoke changes in professional engineering activities. These changes occur quick and constantly. Advances in technology give support to the production process, generate new insights, and as a consequence demand learning about how to execute or improve the functional work. In addition, environmental, social, and economic sustainability concepts also influence society and require that companies assume a responsible attitude towards this tripe. The idea of the engineer that has competencies to work attending to demands of both, 4.0 Industry and Sustainability became critical to winning the crisis that comes with COVID-19 virus. There is a search to define the key competencies to work in this context, such in academic as in professional context. Considering the gaps presented, this work aimed to identify which competencies are important to meet the demands of I 4.0 and sustainability, as well as their degree of importance and development, and also to identify how they have been acquired. A survey strategy was applied, and the data were collected by means of a questionnaire made available via web. A total of 116 responses were collected from engineers or engineering students in the final of the course and working in the area. Based on the literature review, the proposed questionnaire included four groups of competencies: Technical Competence, Methodological Competence, Social Competence and Personal Competence, and was validated in this work by means of the factor analysis in a confirmatory mode. The results demonstrated that the social competence was indicated as the most important and most developed, and technical competence as the least important and least developed. The validated questionnaire is a contribution that can be used in other research contexts. The results can also support the analysis of the engineering education project. This work also contributes to the identification of the competencies that are required for each engineering discipline.