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The machine building industry in general has undergone a profound change during the past years. Each sector has seen a concentration on few major global players. It is interesting to note that a quickly growing number of the graduates of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology join now small and medium enterprises, previously, a clear domain of engineers coming from technical colleges. Presently, the number of new graduates in engineering studies barely keeps its level, while other directions of studies grow steadily, in absolute numbers and in share. The worldwide demand on textiles grows by several impacts. However, textile and apparel production develop differently. Large scale processing of fibres into fabrics is most competitive with a high degree of automation. Therefore, the textile industry is capital and technology intensive. On the other hand, the apparel industry continuously relocates to areas of low labour cost, avoiding automation, and staying labour intensive. In the education process imagination plus perseverance plus knowledge is equal to skill. The scholarly teaching by textbook is efficient in cost, but not so in developing skills. As a consequence of such savings in teaching, new graduates have to get additional extensive training later on the job they start with. Nowadays, teaching becomes tutoring, knowledge is developed into skills, and scholarly performance is transformed into teamwork and leadership. In engineering, this transition phase includes the introduction to full-scale machinery and systems, and to the latest state of the art methods and equipment used in development and application of these machines. To keep teaching up to date, it is essential that the teaching personnel stays in contact with the companies leading in innovation. The institute provides in the courses manufacturing technology, mechantronics and automation. Textiles, the heritage, are the area where the institute trains the skills in engineering and scientific projects that are immediately applicable in a wide range of manufacturing industries.