Sustainability broadens the horizons of technological innovation, introducing the need for a cohesive multidisciplinary approach aimed at implementing the new production paradigm, mass customization, by means of innovation in the fields of production technologies, materials and processes.

The next step will be the evolution toward CSM (Competitive Sustainable Manufacturing), which requires coordinated effort in all the life cycle processes of a product, constantly and completely from the sustainability perspective. In fact, processes and products increasingly incorporate high technology content (making a significant impact on precision and integrated system features), and an approach aiming at sustainability (low energy impact and in general low environmental impact, miniaturisation, efficiency, low intrusiveness, portability, safety, social impact, etc.).

The combination of expertise related to technologies, materials and processes can be exploited to design systems and products that respect the high requirements referred to above, integrating these technological and functional features with the selection of appropriate materials and an industrial design, making a successful and lasting economic impact on the market.

The research axis focuses particularly on the following research areas:

• Transfer of innovation to consolidated production processes.
• Resource management optimisation: recycling and reutilisation of material resources.
• Integration of business and technology models for innovation.
• Intelligence, autonomy and interactivity of products.
• Precision and miniaturisation.