Fibre Reinforced Plastics Engineer (short form: Composite Engineer)

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority at Fraunhofer FIT certifies qualifications in the field of Fibre reinforced composites.

The certificate “Fibre Reinforced Plastics Engineer (short form: Composite Engineer)” certifies the ability of the graduates to supervise the whole life cycle of a Fibre reinforced plastic product. This covers product development, manufacture, and repair and involves interdisciplinary thinking, evaluation, decision-making, and actions relating to effective usage of FRP technology.

Target groups are engineers and scientists in all disciplines and sectors of industry, and also qualified technical employees who either currently work with Fibre composite materials or wish to do so in the future.

The Composite Engineer examination is modular in structure. Participants are tested orally in a basic module and four basic modules. In writing, the participants are tested in four advanced modules, whereby they can select from more than four subject areas.

Passing the final oral examination results in the award of a certificate as "Fibre Reinforced Plastics Engineer (short form: Composite Engineer)".

Educational Background

All candidates must sufficiently master the language of the examination to enable them to understand and answer the questions.

A "Fibre Reinforced Plastics Engineer" must prove: 

• a completed vocational training in the craft or technical field and at least five years' professional experience in the technical field

or

• a passed degree in a technical field (bachelor or higher) from a university, technical college or university of applied sciences in the technical field.

and

• Participation in at least 216 hours of training with a further training provider recognized by the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority (Requirements for professional training providers and a list of recognized training providers are available on request from the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority)

Participants have to proof their participation in the following modules of a professional training:

• The fundamental module
• All four basic modules (Materials, Processing technologies, Machining, Joining Technologies)
• Four advanced modules (at choice)
• The final module
• In addition, the participants must have passed the written learning success controls for the basic modules with at least 67% of the attainable points.
• No more than four years may elapse between the first day of the first module of professional training and the last day of the last module of professional training.

Proof of participation in other equivalent further training courses may be recognized in individual cases. The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority decides on the recognition.

Admission Requirements for the final oral examination

In principle, in order to be admitted to the final oral examination, the written examinations in all elective modules must have been passed with at least 67 %.

In justified individual cases, the head of the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority may admit participants to the final examination who can only prove that they have at least passed two examinations regarding the elective modules with a result of more than 67 %. The missing examination results must be submitted within one year. In this case, the validity of the certificate begins on the date of the certification decision after passing the last partial examination. The validity of the certificate ends three years minus one day after the final oral examination.

The validity period for certificates of the certification profile "Fibre Reinforced Plastics Engineer (short form: Composite Engineer)". is 3 years. Recertification is required to extend the certificate.

For registration, please follow this link.

The registration for the examination includes information about yourself, the type of examination (first or re-examination) and the desired examination date as well as the agreement to the conditions of participation and the rights and obligations as a certificate holder. The conditions of participation and rights and obligations are part of the registration form. Further information can be found in the regulations.

Please find the Certification Handbook for all certification profiles in the field of fibre reinforeced composites here:

Certification handbook and examination regulations

Catalogue of competences

For all certification profiles in the field of fibre reinforced composites, recertification is required after a certificate period of three years minus one day after the last partial examination. This must be applied for at the Fraunhofer Personal Certification Authority before the certificate expires.

Deadline for application for recertification

The application for recertification must be formally submitted to the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority within the period of two years minus one day after the last partial examination to 2.5 years minus one day after the last partial examination.

The application for recertification must be accompanied by proof of professional experience and proof of attendance at a further education event.

Application for registration

For information about the application for registration, please contact Mrs. Dorothea Kugelmeier.

Required evidence

For a recertification the following requirements must be proven:

• proof of at least 1.5 years of professional experience in the field of the profile to be recertified during the three years prior to recertification
• proof of participation in a subject-specific further training event while the certificate is still valid. The further training event, has to include demonstrably up to-date information regarding the competences mentioned in the Certification Handbook in the field of Fibre Reinforced Plastics or other current topics in the context of fibre reinforced plastics.

Proof of professional experience and participation in a further training event

Proof of professional experience may be provided, for example, by means of a certificate from the employer.

Proof of participation in the further training course is provided by a certificate of attendance from the further training provider and the submission of an agenda indicating the subject-specific topics that were dealt with.Recognition of further training events

Minimum requirements for the further training event to be verified

Minimum requirements for the further training event to be verified

• The event must cover a period of at least two days and
• must be organized by a member of a recognized professional association in the field of Fibre composites (e.g. CUeV, AVK) and
• deal with technical topics.
• The certificates of attendance to be submitted must clearly indicate the content-related reference to topics to the field of Fibre composite technology.

Other training activities may also be recognized, with appropriate justification for the quality of the event and its relevance to the field of fibre reinforced plastics, provided that provided that

• the above-mentioned requirement of a two day event is fulfilled.
• the participation in the entire event is evidenced by a personalised certificate of attendance from the organiser (no self-disclosure is permitted for the entire event)
• in addition, the participation in individual parts of the event (lectures, workshops, tutorials) is certified by the organiser or in exceptional cases by self-declaration with reference to the program,
• a description of the extent to which the attended events (lectures, workshops, tutorials) are related to the certification program.

This recognition is granted on a case-by-case basis by the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority in consultation with the Expert Committee Fibre Reinforced Plastics.

Recertification

If the recertification requirements are met, the respective certificate is extended for another three years minus one day.

If the recertification requirements are not met, the validity of the respective certificate expires.