Fibre Reinforced Plastic Specialist

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

The certificate "Fibre Reinforced Plastic Specialist" certifies the ability of the graduates to independently and effectively work with Fibre reinforced plastics and plan their industrial manufacture. The participants are able to select suitable matrix materials to manufacture high-quality FRP products that meet the load requirements. They also have a comprehensive overview of current manufacturing methods and the differences between processing thermosets and thermoplastics.

The certification is aimed at employees in industry whose work involves planning the manufacture of FRPs and implementation in the process chain, and at employees in companies that want to start manufacturing FRPs.

Passing the final examination results in the award of a certificate as "Fibre Reinforced Plastic Specialist".

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

A Fibre Reinforced Plastics Specialist must provide proof of:

A Fibre Reinforced Plastics Specialist must have attended at least 108 hours of training with a further training provider recognized by the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority and have passed two written learning success controls during the course.

(Requirements for professional training providers and a list of recognized training providers are available on request from the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority)

In addition, the fibre-reinforced plastic specialist must meet one of the following conditions: 

• A completed vocational training or a degree (bachelor or higher) from a university, technical college or university of applied sciences in the craft or technical field

or

• At least three years' professional experience in the fibre reinforced plastics or plastics sector.

The validity period for certificates of the certification profile "Fibre Reinforced Plastics Specialist" 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

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.