Although digitization in the manufacturing industry has been going on for some years, the recent COVID-19 pandemic helped reveal a number of bottlenecks and challenges that still need to be overcome. Joint ongoing research by a number of European Universities aimed at developing a systematic training framework on Industry 4.0 happened to be performed in the midst of the pandemic. COVID-19 meant that suddenly, internal and external workers of different educational backgrounds and in different roles had to rapidly adapt to new working procedures and environments whilst learning to use new technologies. This disruption helped this research group to generate specifications of a Higher Education Industry 4.0 Training Framework (HEI4.0) that is relevant to foster skills and competencies that make manufacturing more resilient to other possible scenarios requiring social distancing limitations. This paper outlines the details of the research performed and contributes the concept and value of establishing what is termed as the ‘flow-cognitive profile chart’ of a manufacturing organization to effectively help it in its transition towards digital manufacturing. Based on this concept, the paper passes on to prescribe a HEI4.0 Training Framework intended to guide manufacturing organizations in addressing ‘COVID-19 type’ manufacturing disruptions that can take place in other future unforeseen circumstances.