High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC) of light alloys and Plastic Injection Molding (PIM) are two of the most representative large-scale production-line in manufacturing field, which are strategic for the EU-industry largely dominated by SMEs. Due to the high number of process variables involved and to the non-sinchronisation of the process control units, HPDC and PIM are most "defect-generating" and "energy-consumption" processes in EU industry. In both, sustainability issue imposes that machines/systems are able to efficiently and ecologically support the production with higher quality, faster delivery times, and shorter times between successive generations of products.

The MUSIC project is strongly aimed at leading EU-HPDC/PIM factories to cost-based competitive advantage through the necessary transition to a demand-driven industry with lower waste generation, efficiency, robustness and minimum energy consumption. The development and integration of a completely new ICT tool, based on innovative Control and Cognitive system linked to real time monitoring, that allow an active control of quality, avoiding the presence of defects or over-cost by directly acting on the process-machine variables optimization or equipment boundary conditions.

The Intelligent Manufacturing approach will work at machine-mold project level to optimise/adapt the production of the specific product and can be extended at factory level to select/plan the appropriated production line. The sensors calibration and quality control of measurements will be the pre-requisite of Intelligent Sensor Network to monitor the real-time production and specific focus will be also devoted to Standardization issues.

The challenge of MUSIC is to transform a production-rate-dominated manufacturing field into a quality/efficiency-driven and integration-oriented one to exploit the enormous (and still underestimated) potential of HPDC/PIM through collaborative research and technological development, along the value chain.