The vision of COCOP is that complex process-industry plants are optimally run by operators with the guidance of a coordinating, real-time optimisation system. COCOP will strengthen the global position of the European process industry, which represents 20 per cent of the European manufacturing base with around 450,000 companies generating €1.6 billion in turnover and 6.8 million jobs. The project’s objective is to enable plant-wide monitoring and control by using the model-based, predictive, coordinating optimisation concept in integration with plant’s automation systems. This ambitious approach will be developed and verified in co-operation of European universities, research institutes and industry. The Consortium comprises two universities, three research organisations, the leading copper-plant technology provider, two large companies from the process industry (steel and special chemicals) and four SMEs providing automation solutions. Technical objective is to define, design and implement a concept that integrates existing industrial control systems with efficient data management and optimisation methods and provides means to monitor and control large industrial production processes. The plant-wide monitoring and control comprehend computationally intensive data analysis and large scale optimisation. The social objective is to improve operator plant-wide awareness and reduce mental workload. COCOP will liaise with standardisation bodies (automation) to ensure a sustained impact of the project’s results. Commercialisation of the solution by its process-automation industry partners will allow plant operators to approach optimal production and result in reduced energy and resource consumption, and decreased on-site material handling time and greenhouse gas emissions.