The goal of the COAMP-IRS project is to develop and test advanced techniques to optimally manage and control manufacturing plants, under the industry 4.0 paradigm.

This represents an opportunity to gain competitiveness in manufacturing industries, where ubiquitous communication, sensing, and computation enable the next generation of smart factories.

This is a strategic research field for both Italy and Serbia, give the large share contributed by manufacturing industries to both countries’ GDP, the strong existing synergies, and the prevalence of small and medium enterprises that need innovation to remain competitive in global markets.

In this paradigm, advanced control systems for plant-wide automation represent a crucial keystone, the “brain” of a smart factory. These systems process real-time information to reschedule production to meet the required output, while optimizing cost, material, and energy savings.

Advanced control systems are also relatively cheap to install in existing plants to improve performance, since they require installing only interfaces (communications, software) and computational nodes, without changing the most expansive parts of the machines.

Morevoer, the use of real-time optimization is currently very limited in the manufacturing field, where heurestic rules are used. The potential for performance improvements is therefore extremely large.

The COAMP-IRS project is co-funded by a grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreing Affairs and internation Cooperation (MAECI) and is carried out in partnership with Singidunum University (Serbia) and Stiima – Inteligent Industrila Systems and Technologies for Advanced Manufacturing.