Adaptive and Sustainable Manufacturing Processes for Profiles and Tubes: Challenges and Innovations

Metal profiles and tubes serve diverse industrial needs, from structural support to fluid conveyance, in sectors like automotive, food, energy, furnishing, and appliances. Their production involves a complex supply chain of deformation, welding, and cutting processes, often handled by separate industrial entities, each with specialized skills in machinery, tooling, or manufacturing. It is a relatively traditional sector, where the innovations fostered by the digital and green transitions are crucial to maintain competitiveness and are beginning to sink in. Advanced control systems enhance economic, environmental, and energy efficiency, improve product quality, and reduce waste. Achieving these benefits requires integration across the supply chain and diverse competences. This paper aims at presenting the state of the art, the main innovations, and challenges represented by the use of advanced control systems along the reference supply chain. Particular attention will be paid to the impact of process and machine architecture and the effects on the in-line implementation of new frontier technologies applicable to industrial control such as AI, Digital Twins, sensors, and new concepts of flexible processing and sustainable manufacturing.