A learning factory is a small working production line, with its simulation software, on which students and apprentices learn how automation works. It is a table-top version of the real thing, with the same kinds of controllers, sensors and conveyors.
Reading about a PLC is not the same as seeing a conveyor stop because of a program that you wrote. A learning factory lets the student do this, with no risk to people or to expensive machines. If the program is wrong, a small plastic part falls off a conveyor.
Consider a polytechnic in Nagpur that sets up a learning factory with four stations. In a practical session, twenty students work in groups of four. Each group writes the program for one station, such as the sorting of red and black parts, and then all the groups join their stations into one line. They find out that the line works only if the stations agree on when a part has been handed over. A real factory has the same problem on a much larger scale.
The same line often exists twice, once as real equipment and once as a simulation on a computer. This simulation is a plant digital twin. The student first tests the program on the simulation. Only when it works does the student load it onto the real line.
The buyers are engineering colleges, polytechnics, industrial training institutes (ITIs) and companies that train their own apprentices. A learning factory differs from a computer simulation alone, because the student sees a real part jam, a real sensor miss and a real wire come loose. It also differs from a real plant, because a mistake costs nothing.
Because the line uses the same products as real factories, a student who learns on it can start work in a factory with little extra training. Engineering colleges and training institutes in India use such lines. A related product for younger students is robotics kits for schools.
A learning factory also shows how industrial IoT works. The line's sensors send data to a screen, as in a real plant. It is a small version of an assembly line.