The HQ-Tubes project has been created in order to develop an equipment-independent approach that will allow for improving the manufacturing quality and productivity of both plain and stainless steel pipes and tubes thus resulting in a reduction of the scrap rate. For quality improvement the integration of process monitoring and adaptive control in a pre-production environment is also part of HQ-Tubes.

HQ-Tubes is supported by the European Commission and puts together 5 SMEs located in 4 different countries, 3 RTD performers in 3 different countries and 2 large enterprises as additional end-users (from 2 different countries) and bundles the competence and knowledge on laser technology across Europe.

Coordinator of the project is Fraunhofer ILT.