Automation 1

Automation
Automation is the use of control systems
and information technologies reducing the
need for human intervention.[1] In the scope
of industrialization, automation is a step
beyond mechanization. Whereas
mechanization provided human operators
with machinery to assist them with the
muscular requirements of work, automation
greatly reduces the need for human sensory
and mental requirements as well.
Automation plays an increasingly important
role in the world economy and in daily
experience.

KUKA Industrial Robots being used at a bakery for food production

A series of articles on
Automation
Robotics • Cybernetics

Trade-shows
ASP-DAC (Asia-Pacific) • DAC
DATE (Europe) • ICCAD
Awards
IEEE Robotics and Automation Award

Robots
Industrial robot
Autonomous research robot
Domestic robot

Home Automation
Laboratory automation
Integrated library system
Database administration and
automation
Building automation
Automation 2

Artificial intelligence
Automated attendant
Automated guided vehicle
Automated highway system
Automated pool cleaner
Automated teller machine
Automatic painting (robotic)
Pop music automation
Robotic lawn mower
Telephone switchboard

Social movements
Technocracy movement
Venus Project • Zeitgeist Movement

Impact
Automation has had a notable impact in a wide range of highly visible industries beyond manufacturing.
Once-ubiquitous telephone operators have been replaced largely by automated telephone switchboards and
answering machines. Medical processes such as primary screening in electrocardiography or radiography and
laboratory analysis of human genes, sera, cells, and tissues are carried out at much greater speed and accuracy by
automated systems. Automated teller machines have reduced the need for bank visits to obtain cash and carry out
transactions. In general, automation has been responsible for the shift in the world economy from agrarian to
industrial in the 19th century and from industrial to services in the 20th century.[2]

Advantages and disadvantages

The main advantages of automation are:
• Replacing human operators in tasks that involve hard physical or monotonous work[3] .
• Replacing humans in tasks that should be done in dangerous environments (i.e. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear
facilities, underwater, etc)
• Making tasks that are beyond the human capabilities such as handling too heavy loads, too large objects, too hot
or too cold substances or the requirement to make things too fast or too slow.
• Economy improvement. Sometimes and some kinds of automation implies improves in economy of enterprises,
society or most of humankind. For example, when an enterprise that has invested in automation technology
recovers its investment; when a state or country increases its income due to automation like Germany or Japan in
the 20th Century or when the humankind can use the internet which in turn use satellites and other automated
engines.
The main disadvantages of automation are:
• Technology limits. Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks.
• Unpredictable development costs. The research and development cost of automating a process is difficult to
predict accurately beforehand. Since this cost can have a large impact on profitability, it's possible to finish
automating a process only to discover that there's no economic advantage in doing so.
• Initial costs are relatively high. The automation of a new product required a huge initial investment in comparison
with the unit cost of the product, although the cost of automation is spread in many product batches. The
automation of a plant required a great initial investment too, although this cost is spread in the products to be
produced.
Automation 3

Concerns about unemployment

At first glance, automation might appear to devalue labor through its replacement with less-expensive machines;
however, the overall effect of this on the workforce as a whole remains unclear. Today automation of the workforce
is quite advanced, and continues to advance increasingly more rapidly throughout the world and is encroaching on
ever more skilled jobs, yet during the same period the general well-being and quality of life of most people in the
world (where political factors have not muddied the picture) have improved dramatically. What role automation has
played in these changes has not been well studied.

Dependence on social factors

It is commonly thought that automation implies unemployment because the work of a human being is replaced in
part or completely by a machine. Nevertheless, the unemployment is caused by the economical politics of the
administration like dismissing the workers instead of changing their tasks. Since the general economical policies of
most of the industrial plants are to dismiss people, nowadays automation implies unemployment. In different
scenarios without workers, automation implies more free time instead of unemployment like the case with the
automatic washing machine at home. Automation does not imply unemployment when it makes tasks unimaginable
without automation such as exploring mars with the Sojourner or when the economy is fully adapted to an automated
technology as with the Telephone switchboard.

During the industrial revolution

The widespread impact of industrial automation raises social issues, among them its impact on employment.
Historical concerns about the effects of automation date back to the beginning of the industrial revolution, when a
social movement of English textile machine operators in the early 1800s known as the Luddites protested against
Jacquard's automated weaving looms[4] — often by destroying such textile machines— that they felt threatened their
jobs. One author made the following case. When automation was first introduced, it caused widespread fear. It was
thought that the displacement of human operators by computerized systems would lead to severe unemployment.

During the information revolution

Critics of automation contend that increased industrial automation causes increased unemployment; this was a
pressing concern during the 1980s. One argument claims that this has happened invisibly in recent years, as the fact
that many manufacturing jobs left the United States during the early 1990s was offset by a one-time massive increase
in IT jobs at the same time. Some authors argue that the opposite has often been true, and that automation has led to
higher employment. Under this point of view, the freeing up of the labor force has allowed more people to enter
higher skilled managerial as well as specialized consultant/contractor jobs (like cryptographers), which are typically
higher paying. One odd side effect of this shift is that "unskilled labor" is in higher demand in many first-world
nations, because fewer people are available to fill such jobs.

Late 20th century emphasis

In manufacturing, the purpose of automation has shifted to issues broader than productivity and costs.

Reliability and precision

The old focus on using automation simply to increase productivity and reduce costs was seen to be short-sighted,
because it is also necessary to provide a skilled workforce who can make repairs and manage the machinery.
Moreover, the initial costs of automation were high and often could not be recovered by the time entirely new
manufacturing processes replaced the old. (Japan's "robot junkyards" were once world famous in the manufacturing
industry.)
Automation 4

Automation is now often applied primarily to increase quality in the manufacturing process, where automation can
increase quality substantially. For example, automobile and truck pistons used to be installed into engines manually.
This is rapidly being transitioned to automated machine installation, because the error rate for manual installment
was around 1-1.5%, but has been reduced to 0.00001% with automation.

Health and environment

The costs of automation to the environment are different depending on the technology, product or engine automated.
There are automated engines that consume more energy resources from the Earth in comparison with previous
engines and those that do the opposite too. Hazardous operations, such as oil refining, the manufacturing of
industrial chemicals, and all forms of metal working, were always early contenders for automation.

Convertibility and turn-around time

Another major shift in automation is the increased demand for flexibility and convertibility in manufacturing
processes. Manufacturers are increasingly demanding the ability to easily switch from manufacturing Product A to
manufacturing Product B without having to completely rebuild the production lines. Flexibility and distributed
processes have led to the introduction of Automated Guided Vehicles with Natural Features Navigation.
Digital electronics helped too. Former analogue-based instrumentation was replaced by digital equivalents which can
be more accurate and flexible, and offer greater scope for more sophisticated configuration, parametrization and
operation. This was accompanied by the fieldbus revolution which provided a networked (i.e. a single cable) means
of communicating between control systems and field level instrumentation, eliminating hard-wiring.
Discrete manufacturing plants adopted these technologies fast. The more conservative process industries with their
longer plant life cycles have been slower to adopt and analogue-based measurement and control still dominates. The
growing use of Industrial Ethernet on the factory floor is pushing these trends still further, enabling manufacturing
plants to be integrated more tightly within the enterprise, via the internet if necessary. Global competition has also
increased demand for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems.

Automation tools
Engineers now can have numerical control over automated devices. The result has been a rapidly expanding range of
applications and human activities. Computer-aided technologies (or CAx) now serve the basis for mathematical and
organizational tools used to create complex systems. Notable examples of CAx include Computer-aided design
(CAD software) and Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM software). The improved the design, analysis, and
manufacture of products enabled by CAx has been beneficial for industry.[5]
Information technology, together with industrial machinery and processes, can assist in the design, implementation,
and monitoring of control systems. One example of an industrial control system is a programmable logic controller
(PLC). PLCs are specialized hardened computers which are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from
(physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events.[1]
Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces,
are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers. Service personnel who monitor and control
through HMIs can be called by different names. In industrial process and manufacturing environments, they are
called operators or something similar. In boiler houses and central utilities departments they are called stationary
engineers.[6]
Different types of automation tools exist:
• ANN - Artificial neural network
• DCS - Distributed Control System
• HMI - Human Machine Interface
Automation 5

• SCADA - Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition

• PLC - Programmable Logic Controller
• PAC - Programmable automation controller
• Instrumentation
• Motion control
• Robotics

Current limits
Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern
recognition, language recognition, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern
mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such
as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In
many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of
industrial tasks is possible.

Applications of Automation
• Automated Video surveillance:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started the research and development of automated
Visual surveillance and Monitoring (VSAM) program 1997-99 and airborne Video Surveillance (AVS) program
1998-2002. Currently there is a major effort underway in the vision community to develop a fully automated
tracking surveillance system. Automated video surveillance monitors people and vehicle in real time within a busy
environment. Existing automated surveillance systems are based on the environment they are primarily designed to
observe, i.e., indoor, outdoor or airborne, the amount of sensors that the automated system can handle and the
mobility of sensor, i.e., stationary camera vs. mobile camera. The purpose of a surveillance system is to record
properties and trajectories of objects in a given area, generate warnings or notify designated authority in case of
occurrence of particular events.[7]
• Automated Highway Systems:
As demands for safety and mobility have grown and technological possibilities have multiplied, interest in
automation have grown. Seeking to accelerate the development and introduction of fully automated vehicles and
highways, The United States Congress authorized more than $650 million over 6 years for intelligent transport
systems (ITS) and demonstration projects in the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA).
Congress legislated in ISTEA that “The secretary [of transportation] shall develop an automated highway and vehicle
prototype from which future fully automated intelligent vehicle-highway systems can be developed. Such
development shall include research in human factors to ensure the success of the man-machine relationship. The goal
of this program is to have the first fully automated highway roadway or an automated test track in operation by 1997.
This system shall accommodate installation of equipment in new and existing motor vehicles." [ISTEA 1991, part B,
Section 6054(b)].
Full automation commonly defined as requiring no control or very limited control by the driver; such automation
would be accomplished through a combination of sensor, computer, and communications systems in vehicles and
along the roadway. Fully automated driving would, in theory, allow closer vehicle spacing and higher speeds, which
could enhance traffic capacity in places where additional road building is physically impossible, politically
unacceptable, or prohibitively expensive. Automated controls also might enhance road safety by reducing the
opportunity for driver error, which causes a large share of motor vehicle crashes. Other potential benefits include
improved air quality (as a result of more-efficient traffic flows), increased fuel economy, and spin-off technologies
generated during research and development related to automated highway systems.[8]
Automation 6

• Automated manufacturing:
Automated manufacturing refers to the application of automation to produce things in the factory way. Most of the
advantages of the automation technology has its influence in the manufacture processes.
The main advantage of the automated manufacturing are: higher consistency and quality, reduce the lead times,
simplification of production, reduce handling, improve work flow and increase the morale of workers when a good
implementation of the automation is made.
• Home Automation
Home automation (also called domotics) designates an emerging practice of increased automation of household
appliances and features in residential dwellings, particularly through electronic means that allow for things
impracticable, overly expensive or simply not possible in recent past decades.

See also
• Outline of automation
• Artificial intelligence
• Laboratory automation
• BELBIC
• Controller
• Conveyor
• Conveyor belt
• Cybernetics
• Hardware architect
• Hardware architecture
• Industrial engineering
• Machine to Machine
• Mechanization
• Mobile manipulator
• OLE for process control
• OPC Foundation
• Process control
• Retraining
• Run Book Automation (RBA)
• Robot
• Support automation
• Systems architect
• Systems architecture
• Odo J. Struger
• EnOcean
• Vacuum tube
• Stepper motor
Automation 7

Further reading
• Jeremy Rifkin: The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era
• Ramin Ramtin: Capitalism and Automation - Revolution in Technology and Capitalist Breakdown. Pluto Press,
London, Concord Mass. 1991
• Vernon L. Trevathan A Guide to the Automation Body of Knowledge, 2nd Edition ISA Publications [9]
• Ouellette, Robert. Automation impacts on industry. Ann Arbor Science Publishers, 1983. Print.
• Dunlop, J. T. Automation and Technologican Change. Publishing city: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1962. Print.
• Scott, E.L. Automation and Society. Publishing City: Athens, Georgia : The Center for the study of Automation
Society, 1969. Print.

External links
• IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering [10]
• ISA (International Society of Automation) [11]

References
[1] "Automation - Definitions from Dictionary.com" (http:/ / dictionary. reference. com/ browse/ Automation). dictionary.reference.com. .
Retrieved 2008-04-22.
[2] "30 Of The Fastest Declining Occupations" (http:/ / www. boston. com/ bostonworks/ galleries/ 30fast_declining_occupations?pg=10). The
Boston Globe. 2008-03-24. .
[3] Process automation, retrieved on 20.02.2010 (http:/ / www. bma-automation. com/ Prozessautomatisierung. 2102. 0. html?id=2102& L=1)
[4] The Luddites (http:/ / www. spartacus. schoolnet. co. uk/ PRluddites. htm)
[5] "Engineers' CAx education—it's not only CAD" (http:/ / www. sciencedirect. com/ science?_ob=ArticleURL& _udi=B6TYR-4C62R0B-2&
_user=10& _coverDate=12/ 31/ 2004& _rdoc=1& _fmt=high& _orig=browse& _sort=d& view=c& _acct=C000050221& _version=1&
_urlVersion=0& _userid=10& md5=cc7a4e3e1cfdc05c7556848feaecf169). .
[6] Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators (http:/ / www. bls. gov/ oco/ ocos228. htm)
[7] Javed, O, & Shah, M. (2008). Automated multi-camera surveillance. City of Publication: Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
[8] Menzies, Thomas. R. National Automated Highway System Research Program A review. 253. Washington D.C.: Transportation Research
Board, 1998. 2-50.
[9] http:/ / www. isa. org/ Template. cfm?Section=Books3& template=/ Ecommerce/ ProductDisplay. cfm& ProductID=8800
[10] http:/ / goldberg. berkeley. edu/ t-ase/
[11] http:/ / www. isa. org
Article Sources and Contributors 8

Article Sources and Contributors

Automation  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=378843187  Contributors: 69erman, AdjustShift, Adrianpask, Afredman, Alex1011, Alexjohnc3, Ali123456789123456789,
Alperkaradas, Andrew Delong, Andy Dingley, Anthony717, Antonio Prates, Anwar saadat, Autiger, Automation com, AutomationBooks, Babbage, Bagatelle, Benbest, Bhougland, Blueflex,
BoH, BrandywineITS, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Cartiman, Citect, Cnelson, Control.optimization, Cuttysc, Cyrius, Czyl, D-Rock, D6, DJ LoPaTa, Darklilac, Daverocks, DeLarge, Denoir,
Derekor, Dford2009, Dialectric, Dicklyon, Discospinster, Doug Coldwell, Dragonix, Dysprosia, EdJohnston, Edcolins, EdisonLuiz, Edward, Ehague, Elmschrat, Elostirion, Emarsee,
Emperorbma, Eseq, Eurotopia, Exelby, Falcon8765, Fedorl, Firsfron, FlowG, Ft1, GB fan, Geeautomation, Gengiskanhg, Giftlite, GrimmReaperSound, Ham Pastrami, Harriv, Heron, HopeChrist,
Hvilshoj, I already forgot, Iautomation, Infrogmation, Ingeceo, Intgr, Intothevoid, Inwind, IslandHopper973, Isnow, J.delanoy, Jaganath, Jdietsch, Jeffq, Jitbit1, Joef101, JonHarder,
Justinpwilsonadvocate, Jynus, Kengoldberg, Kku, Kmarinas86, Kons Werner, Kozuch, KsprayDad, Kuru, Kwertii, La goutte de pluie, Ligulem, Loudenvier, LtPowers, Luna Santin, MFNickster,
Ma-Lik, Mac, MacMed, Mako098765, Manco Capac, Mandarax, Mani1, Maork, MartyRobar, MauriceKA, Maury Markowitz, McNoddy, Mikaey, Mild Bill Hiccup, Miller77, Miya, Monedula,
N4AEE, NAHID, Nat000, NawlinWiki, Nburden, Ninokurtalj, Normxxx, Octahedron80, Oleg Alexandrov, PHiZiX, Pacificcontrols2010, Pgvitz, Pharaoh of the Wizards, Phe, Physicist, Plrk,
Prdejong, Psichris, R D S, RShohat, Raul654, RedWolf, Requestion, Riley06, Ripogenus77, Robertissimo, Ronz, Rpsupp, Rror, Rubenyi, Shadowjams, Sikon, SoManySpammers, Spangineer,
Spartaz, Squart, SteffiKl, Stephane Simard, SummerWithMorons, Supersteve04038, Suruena, Swaroopprasad, Tabletop, Tarbarrels, Techtonik, The Transhumanist, Thingg, Thomasjburke,
Three-quarter-ten, Tide rolls, Tillmo, Toloquta, Topbanana, Tthheeppaarrttyy, Tucker001, Twelvethirteen, Uncle Milty, User A1, Velela, Versageek, Versus22, Vijayamurugan.p@gmail.com,
Vinaymalik1, Vladimir4ooo0, Vm49, Vpovilaitis, Wernher, Wik, Willem7, Woohookitty, WriterHound, Yabbadab, YauTou, Yintan, ZX81, Zzuuzz, 341 anonymous edits

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File:Factory Automation Robotics Palettizing Bread.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Factory_Automation_Robotics_Palettizing_Bread.jpg  License: Public Domain
 Contributors: KUKA Roboter GmbH, Bachmann
File:KUKA robot for flat glas handling.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:KUKA_robot_for_flat_glas_handling.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: KUKA
Roboter GmbH, Bachmann

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