The ROBOT BOX project aims to develop two main outcomes, first an adaptive Multi-Disciplinary Optimization (MDO) for weld and additive manufacturing preparation and second a plug-and-play, agile, flexible, open source rapidly reconfigurable control box for manufacturing systems. The adaptive MDO will be connected to Finite Element Analyses systems already in use in companies to explore and optimize in an automatic manner weld sequencing and weld parameters to fulfil optimization objective such as minimized distortions and other specified quality requirements. Regarding, the control box, the initial application area is welding, and metal additive manufacturing. This control box will be used to adapt on-the-fly control programmes that are initially created offline. To do so, it uses information collected from sensors used for pre-inspection of the assemblies to be welded and during process monitoring. The control programmes are created offline using dedicated applications and are used with both arm robots and Cartesian machines. When creating robot programmes, perfect parts in CAD files are considered. In welding applications, the parts to be assembled may differ from the ideal parts, and the purpose of the control box in this project is to allow the automatic adaptation of offline programs based on an evaluation of the differences between the real assemblies and the CAD model considered for program creation. The development of the box will be carried out through three complementary industrial use cases covering two manufacturing processes, welding and welding based additive manufacturing. These cases cover different manufacturing scales and batch sizes, ranging from one-lot size production to medium batch sizes. The control box aims to enable a manufacturing unit with short ramp-up times, increased productivity, and quality. The work content of the ROBOT BOX project resonates with four of the six SMART technical domains and demonstrates the benefits and added value of global technology, business collaboration and value chains in realizing such a complex and comprehensive manufacturing control framework and its components. Throughout the project, serious attention is paid to nurturing what starts as a technology collaboration into a far-reaching international business value chain.