The European manufacturing industry today faces high levels of local and international (improper) competition. Several factors determine a manufacturing company's competitiveness: new product development time, production lead time, flexibility in responding to (market) changes in demand of volume and variety, quality, price, response to customer delivery requirements, use of state-of-the-art materials, processes and technologies. In every case, the company's ability to respond to these factors depends critically on the capability of its manufacturing organisation. The answer is sought in accelerating the technological development by introducing a coherent set of methodologies, computer-aided tools, and experimental test beds to design, analyse and improve manufacturing systems. This combined Demo and R& TD project is aiming at the development and demonstration of a new, leading intelligent and flexible manufacturing method, based on the latest state-of-the-art technology and building on FMS (flexible manufacturing system) technology. The objectives of the full project are:- To draft detailed terms of reference on the new system functionality among the partners;- To design an appropriate step-by-step practical production layout and an extension of production cells.