Sheet Metal Forming is a very complex manufacturing process with a number of non-linearities, e.g. large deformations, localisation, elastic-plastic materials, pressure and velocity dependant friction conditions and structural deficiencies in the die and press, present and interacting simultaneously. This leads to disturbances in running production that results in production waste, e.g. down time for the press line and cost for rework and scrapping of parts. These production problems are also hard to understandand solve based on experience and analytical models due to the presence of several non-linearities. An alternative is to try to solve these problems proactively before they occur. This could be done with model based control by creating a digital twin of the die-set and the press line. Therefore, a virtual production process is developed to be able to use as knowledge building and as engineering tool during development, manufacturing, issue resolution and optimization. In this paper presents the authors ideas and plans for research and other activities within the area of model based control of sheet metal forming.