Within the context of market globalisation, the quality of products has become a key factor for success in manufacturing industry. The growing unpredictability of demand necessitates continuous adjustments in production targets. Addressing customer needs and customer satisfaction are the most important factors for successful businesses. Being consistent in meeting their needs, the existing manufacturing systems have to be adaptable while maximising the quality of their products. Guided by this challenge, in this paper we provide a holistic framework and ad-hoc strategies applicable both to new and existing manufacturing lines to achieve zero-defects in manufacturing via a novel ZDM platform that integrates state of the art ICT technologies, AI models and inspection tools which elevate manufacturing plants to a superior level of competitiveness and sustainability. The proposed approach and results in this article are based on the development and implementation in a large collaborative EU-funded H2020 research project entitled Z - Fact0r, i.e. Zero-defect manufacturing strategies towards on-line production management for European factories.