Outsourcing has helped companies in Europe to turn around their processes and become more competitive in the world markets. Because of outsourcing companies are becoming more modular, with entire departments or processes being managed by 3rd parties that play the role of virtual subsidiaries. Manufacturing is the 2nd largest sector in outsourcing, with 150b Euros worth of contracts worldwide. In this environment, companies do not only sell products, but also know how and processes. In the context of the virtual and modular enterprise, large companies need to transfer their internally developed know how to SMEs that are recipients of outsourcing contracts.

However, the list of failures is long: I) One of the largest bridges in Europe was recently produced at multiple fabrication sites through an outsourced production process. The surface treatment was clearly specified by the contractor according to given standards. However the humidity requirements were not understood in one of the sites, whereby the expected maintenance and renewal cycle of 30 years, actually was reduced to 5 years. Additional costs for the fabricator: 1.5 mill euro every 5 year. II) The dealers of two different car companies in Norway are currently free of charge repairing 14.000 cars produced between September 1999 and June 2003. Lack of proper quality assurance systems within their global production workflow has led to unexpected broken springs in the front rears, resulting in several million Euros as additional costs for 2 models and reduced market shares. III) Shipbuilding yards in the Mediterranean area frequently outsourcing steel construction to other yards (Romania), either as complete hulls or as sections. Labor intensive hull fabrication with double curvature shells plating, require know-how and expertise that it is important to transfer and maintain if the quality of the hull is going to be acceptable.

EU directives, harmonized standards, and educational guidelines targeting the interplay with the expanding SME fabrication industry promote new production systems where outsourcing of knowledge-based production is frequently used as a convenient and necessary tool. However a measurable quality assurance aspect of outsourcing is frequently often not properly addressed within management of the distributed virtual subsidiaries, resulting in a steady increase of withdrawal of products from the market with subsequent sky-rocketing repair costs that effectively slow down the modernization of industrial production systems and technologies within Europe. The regulated European fabrication industry enhances a new market for trans-national on the job know-how competence transfer where effective possibly remotely located in-company skills upgrading processes and mentoring/tutoring solutions constitutes critical business activities within successful frameworks.

Though production standards, guidelines and diplomas are identical, know-how and expertise associated with the new production technologies vary enormously throughout Europe when obtained on the job through the daily work. It has not been developed any formalized methodologies to transfer such knowledge due to lack of semantic "interoperability" within technical communication. Vivid high quality Visual Communication and Collaboration technologies (VCC) will be used to mediate documentation of know-how and practises in order to reintroduce the semantic interoperability.

GLOBAL MAT aims to validate a new competence transfer model, a new measurable quality assurance system, and a new pedagogical principle for organising, delivering, and deploying effective production technology transfer within and between companies, as well as towards VET schools. GLOBAL MAT establishes new model(s) for delivering in-company skills development processes that significantly reduces the costs related to technology transfer and enhances production competence know-how transfer between the companies involved. The basis for such a framework will be an extension of the existing formalised educational system and the non-formalized know-how experienced in companies, through an innovative mixing of: (i) new virtual blended learning environments utilizing educational video content delivery (ii) state of the art principles for learning design and learning activities (iii) coordinated active feedback of knowledge exchange for peer-to-peer corrective actions in direct production through videoconferencing/video streaming technologies, i.e. virtual mobility create new synergies for cost- and time efficient in-company training practices.