TOOLING4G/PPS2- Advanced Tools for Smart Manufacturing

The TOOLING4G project aims to make an important contribution to the moulds and plastics industry, enabling the partner companies to create the conditions to become competitive and to overcome global market challenges, by creating internally conditions for production flexibility. The project is structured in 7 large PPSs (Product, Process or Service), including hybrid manufacturing processes; intelligent tools/systems; efficient tools for multi-material products' manufacturing; multi-process tools; industry digitalization; sustainable "zero defect" production chain; management and dissemination. The consortium consists of 21 mould-making and plastics companies and 10 entities of the research and innovation system, including higher education institutions and technology interface centres, that possess a set of complementary skills and human capital resources. Several innovations are expected to be developed in the project, mainly centred in materials, products and processes, and also in the endogenization of technologies and organizational paradigms in the context of the Industry 4.0 concept. The participation of the University of Coimbra (UC) in the “PPS2 - Intelligent Tools/Systems” of TOOLING4G includes the development of a system of algorithms for communication in the mould-machine complex for real-time monitoring, prediction and control of parameters, variables, and defects in the injection process and in the mould-machine complex, in order to optimize the process and the moulded parts. In this participation, the UC is represented by the Intelligent Control research group of the "Institute of Systems and Robotics - University of Coimbra" (ISR-UC). In this context, computational intelligence and intelligent control methodologies are investigated and developed for monitoring, prediction, and control of parameters, variables, and defects.