Automation

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Minimum human intervention is required to control many large facilities, such as this electrical generating station.

Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines.

electronic devices, and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes, and ships typically use combinations of all of these techniques. The benefit of automation includes labor savings, reducing waste, savings in electricity
costs, savings in material costs, and improvements to quality, accuracy, and precision.

Automation includes the use of various equipment and

factories, boilers,[3] and heat-treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering, stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with reduced human intervention.[4] Examples range from a household thermostat
controlling a boiler to a large industrial control system with tens of thousands of input measurements and output control signals. Automation has also found a home in the banking industry. It can range from simple on-off control to multi-variable high-level algorithms in terms of control complexity.

In the simplest type of an automatic

feedback controllers, which were introduced in the 1930s.[6]

The

populist politics in the US, UK and France, among other countries since the 2010s.[8][9][10][11][12]

History

Early history

Ctesibius's clepsydra (3rd century BC)

It was a preoccupation of the Greeks and Arabs (in the period between about 300 BC and about 1200 AD) to keep accurate track of time. In

Ptolemaic Egypt, about 270 BC, Ctesibius described a float regulator for a water clock, a device not unlike the ball and cock in a modern flush toilet. This was the earliest feedback-controlled mechanism.[13]
The appearance of the mechanical clock in the 14th century made the water clock and its feedback control system obsolete.

The

Banū Mūsā brothers, in their Book of Ingenious Devices (850 AD), described a number of automatic controls.[14] Two-step level controls for fluids, a form of discontinuous variable structure controls, were developed by the Banu Musa brothers.[15] They also described a feedback controller.[16][17] The design of feedback control systems up through the Industrial Revolution was by trial-and-error, together with a great deal of engineering intuition. It was not until the mid-19th century that the stability of feedback control systems was analyzed using mathematics, the formal language of automatic control theory.[citation needed
]

The centrifugal governor was invented by Christiaan Huygens in the seventeenth century, and used to adjust the gap between millstones.[18][19][20]

Industrial Revolution in Western Europe

Steam engines promoted automation through the need to control engine speed and power.

The introduction of

speed control devices. Another control mechanism was used to tent the sails of windmills. It was patented by Edmund Lee in 1745.[21] Also in 1745, Jacques de Vaucanson invented the first automated loom. Around 1800, Joseph Marie Jacquard created a punch-card system to program looms.[22]

In 1771 Richard Arkwright invented the first fully automated spinning mill driven by water power, known at the time as the water frame.[23] An automatic flour mill was developed by Oliver Evans in 1785, making it the first completely automated industrial process.[24][25]

flyball governor
is an early example of a feedback control system. An increase in speed would make the counterweights move outward, sliding a linkage that tended to close the valve supplying steam, and so slowing the engine.

A centrifugal governor was used by Mr. Bunce of England in 1784 as part of a model

Boulton & Watt were building.[21] The governor could not actually hold a set speed; the engine would assume a new constant speed in response to load changes. The governor was able to handle smaller variations such as those caused by fluctuating heat load to the boiler. Also, there was a tendency for oscillation whenever there was a speed change. As a consequence, engines equipped with this governor were not suitable for operations requiring constant speed, such as cotton spinning.[21]

Several improvements to the governor, plus improvements to valve cut-off timing on the steam engine, made the engine suitable for most industrial uses before the end of the 19th century. Advances in the steam engine stayed well ahead of science, both thermodynamics and control theory.[21] The governor received relatively little scientific attention until James Clerk Maxwell published a paper that established the beginning of a theoretical basis for understanding control theory.

20th century

Relay logic was introduced with factory electrification, which underwent rapid adaption from 1900 through the 1920s. Central electric power stations were also undergoing rapid growth and the operation of new high-pressure boilers, steam turbines and electrical substations created a large demand for instruments and controls. Central control rooms became common in the 1920s, but as late as the early 1930s, most process controls were on-off. Operators typically monitored charts drawn by recorders that plotted data from instruments. To make corrections, operators manually opened or closed valves or turned switches on or off. Control rooms also used color-coded lights to send signals to workers in the plant to manually make certain changes.[28]

The development of the electronic amplifier during the 1920s, which was important for long-distance telephony, required a higher signal-to-noise ratio, which was solved by negative feedback noise cancellation. This and other telephony applications contributed to the control theory. In the 1940s and 1950s, German mathematician

fire control systems and aircraft navigation systems.[6]

Controllers, which were able to make calculated changes in response to deviations from a set point rather than on-off control, began being introduced in the 1930s. Controllers allowed manufacturing to continue showing productivity gains to offset the declining influence of factory electrification.[29]

Factory productivity was greatly increased by electrification in the 1920s. U.S. manufacturing productivity growth fell from 5.2%/yr 1919–29 to 2.76%/yr 1929–41. Alexander Field notes that spending on non-medical instruments increased significantly from 1929 to 1933 and remained strong thereafter.[29]

The First and Second World Wars saw major advancements in the field of

stochastic analysis
(1941).

Starting in 1958, various systems based on

Logacec, Akkord [de] Estacord, Krone Mibakron, Bistat, Datapac, Norlog, SSR, or Procontic systems.[30][32][33][34][35][36]

In 1959 Texaco's Port Arthur Refinery became the first chemical plant to use digital control.[37] Conversion of factories to digital control began to spread rapidly in the 1970s as the price of computer hardware fell.

Significant applications

The automatic telephone switchboard was introduced in 1892 along with dial telephones. By 1929, 31.9% of the Bell system was automatic.[38]: 158  Automatic telephone switching originally used vacuum tube amplifiers and electro-mechanical switches, which consumed a large amount of electricity. Call volume eventually grew so fast that it was feared the telephone system would consume all electricity production, prompting Bell Labs to begin research on the transistor.[39]

The logic performed by telephone switching relays was the inspiration for the digital computer. The first commercially successful glass bottle-blowing machine was an automatic model introduced in 1905.[40] The machine, operated by a two-man crew working 12-hour shifts, could produce 17,280 bottles in 24 hours, compared to 2,880 bottles made by a crew of six men and boys working in a shop for a day. The cost of making bottles by machine was 10 to 12 cents per gross compared to $1.80 per gross by the manual glassblowers and helpers.

Sectional electric drives were developed using control theory. Sectional electric drives are used on different sections of a machine where a precise differential must be maintained between the sections. In steel rolling, the metal elongates as it passes through pairs of rollers, which must run at successively faster speeds. In paper making paper, the sheet shrinks as it passes around steam-heated drying arranged in groups, which must run at successively slower speeds. The first application of a sectional electric drive was on a paper machine in 1919.[41] One of the most important developments in the steel industry during the 20th century was continuous wide strip rolling, developed by Armco in 1928.[42]

Automated pharmacology production

Before automation, many chemicals were made in batches. In 1930, with the widespread use of instruments and the emerging use of controllers, the founder of Dow Chemical Co. was advocating continuous production.[43]

Self-acting machine tools that displaced hand dexterity so they could be operated by boys and unskilled laborers were developed by

Machine tools were automated with Numerical control
(NC) using punched paper tape in the 1950s. This soon evolved into computerized numerical control (CNC).

Today extensive automation is practiced in practically every type of manufacturing and assembly process. Some of the larger processes include electrical power generation, oil refining, chemicals, steel mills, plastics, cement plants, fertilizer plants, pulp and paper mills, automobile and truck assembly, aircraft production, glass manufacturing, natural gas separation plants, food and beverage processing, canning and bottling and manufacture of various kinds of parts. Robots are especially useful in hazardous applications like automobile spray painting. Robots are also used to assemble electronic circuit boards. Automotive welding is done with robots and automatic welders are used in applications like pipelines.

Space/computer age

With the advent of the space age in 1957, controls design, particularly in the United States, turned away from the frequency-domain techniques of classical control theory and backed into the differential equation techniques of the late 19th century, which were couched in the time domain. During the 1940s and 1950s, German mathematician

(1983).

Advantages, disadvantages, and limitations

Perhaps the most cited advantage of automation in industry is that it is associated with faster production and cheaper labor costs. Another benefit could be that it replaces hard, physical, or monotonous work.[45] Additionally, tasks that take place in hazardous environments or that are otherwise beyond human capabilities can be done by machines, as machines can operate even under extreme temperatures or in atmospheres that are radioactive or toxic. They can also be maintained with simple quality checks. However, at the time being, not all tasks can be automated, and some tasks are more expensive to automate than others. Initial costs of installing the machinery in factory settings are high, and failure to maintain a system could result in the loss of the product itself.

Moreover, some studies seem to indicate that industrial automation could impose ill effects beyond operational concerns, including worker displacement due to systemic loss of employment and compounded environmental damage; however, these findings are both convoluted and controversial in nature, and could potentially be circumvented.[46]

The main advantages of automation are:

  • Increased throughput or productivity
  • Improved quality
  • Increased predictability
  • Improved robustness (consistency), of processes or product
  • Increased consistency of output
  • Reduced direct human labor costs and expenses
  • Reduced cycle time
  • Increased accuracy
  • Relieving humans of monotonously repetitive work [47]
  • Required work in development, deployment, maintenance, and operation of automated processes — often structured as "jobs"
  • Increased human freedom to do other things

Automation primarily describes machines replacing human action, but it is also loosely associated with mechanization, machines replacing human labor. Coupled with mechanization, extending human capabilities in terms of size, strength, speed, endurance, visual range & acuity, hearing frequency & precision, electromagnetic sensing & effecting, etc., advantages include:[48]

  • Relieving humans of dangerous work stresses and
    occupational injuries
    (e.g., fewer strained backs from lifting heavy objects)
  • Removing humans from dangerous environments (e.g. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, underwater, etc.)

The main disadvantages of automation are:

  • High initial cost
  • Faster production without human intervention can mean faster unchecked production of defects where automated processes are defective.
  • Scaled-up capacities can mean scaled-up problems when systems fail — releasing dangerous toxins, forces, energies, etc., at scaled-up rates.
  • Human adaptiveness is often poorly understood by automation initiators. It is often difficult to anticipate every contingency and develop fully preplanned automated responses for every situation. The discoveries inherent in automating processes can require unanticipated iterations to resolve, causing unanticipated costs and delays.
  • People anticipating employment income may be seriously disrupted by others deploying automation where no similar income is readily available.

Paradox of automation

The

Lisanne Bainbridge, a cognitive psychologist, identified these issues notably in her widely cited paper "Ironies of Automation."[49] If an automated system has an error, it will multiply that error until it is fixed or shut down. This is where human operators come in.[50] A fatal example of this was Air France Flight 447, where a failure of automation put the pilots into a manual situation they were not prepared for.[51]

Limitations

Current limitations

Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level

cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where the automation of industrial tasks is possible. Therefore, algorithmic management as the digital rationalization of human labor instead of its substitution has emerged as an alternative technological strategy.[53] Overcoming these obstacles is a theorized path to post-scarcity economics.[54]

Societal impact and unemployment

Increased automation often causes workers to feel anxious about losing their jobs as technology renders their skills or experience unnecessary. Early in the

weaving machines by destroying them.[55] More recently, some residents of Chandler, Arizona, have slashed tires and pelted rocks at self-driving car, in protest over the cars' perceived threat to human safety and job prospects.[56]

The relative anxiety about automation reflected in opinion polls seems to correlate closely with the strength of

organized labor in that region or nation. For example, while a study by the Pew Research Center indicated that 72% of Americans are worried about increasing automation in the workplace, 80% of Swedes see automation and artificial intelligence (AI) as a good thing, due to the country's still-powerful unions and a more robust national safety net.[57]

In the U.S., 47% of all current jobs have the potential to be fully automated by 2033, according to the research of experts

Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne. Furthermore, wages and educational attainment appear to be strongly negatively correlated with an occupation's risk of being automated.[58] Even highly skilled professional jobs like a lawyer, doctor, engineer, journalist are at risk of automation.[59]

Prospects are particularly bleak for occupations that do not presently require a university degree, such as truck driving.[60] Even in high-tech corridors like Silicon Valley, concern is spreading about a future in which a sizable percentage of adults have little chance of sustaining gainful employment.[61] "In The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue that "...there's never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education, because these people can use technology to create and capture value. However, there's never been a worse time to be a worker with only 'ordinary' skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate."[62] As the example of Sweden suggests, however, the transition to a more automated future need not inspire panic, if there is sufficient political will to promote the retraining of workers whose positions are being rendered obsolete.

According to a 2020 study in the Journal of Political Economy, automation has robust negative effects on employment and wages: "One more robot per thousand workers reduces the employment-to-population ratio by 0.2 percentage points and wages by 0.42%."[63]

Research by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of the Oxford Martin School argued that employees engaged in "tasks following well-defined procedures that can easily be performed by sophisticated algorithms" are at risk of displacement, and 47% of jobs in the US were at risk. The study, released as a working paper in 2013 and published in 2017, predicted that automation would put low-paid physical occupations most at risk, by surveying a group of colleagues on their opinions.[64] However, according to a study published in McKinsey Quarterly[65] in 2015 the impact of computerization in most cases is not the replacement of employees but the automation of portions of the tasks they perform.[66] The methodology of the McKinsey study has been heavily criticized for being intransparent and relying on subjective assessments.[67] The methodology of Frey and Osborne has been subjected to criticism, as lacking evidence, historical awareness, or credible methodology.[68][69] Additionally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that across the 21 OECD countries, 9% of jobs are automatable.[70]

The

Obama administration pointed out that every 3 months "about 6 percent of jobs in the economy are destroyed by shrinking or closing businesses, while a slightly larger percentage of jobs are added."[71] A recent MIT economics study of automation in the U.S. from 1990 to 2007 found that there may be a negative impact on employment and wages when robots are introduced to an industry. When one robot is added per one thousand workers, the employment to population ratio decreases between 0.18 and 0.34 percentages and wages are reduced by 0.25–0.5 percentage points. During the time period studied, the US did not have many robots in the economy which restricts the impact of automation. However, automation is expected to triple (conservative estimate) or quadruple (a generous estimate) leading these numbers to become substantially higher.[72]

Based on a formula by

Toulouse 1 University, the demand for unskilled human capital declines at a slower rate than the demand for skilled human capital increases.[73] In the long run and for society as a whole it has led to cheaper products, lower average work hours, and new industries forming (i.e., robotics industries, computer industries, design industries). These new industries provide many high salary skill-based jobs to the economy. By 2030, between 3 and 14 percent of the global workforce will be forced to switch job categories due to automation eliminating jobs in an entire sector. While the number of jobs lost to automation is often offset by jobs gained from technological advances, the same type of job loss is not the same one replaced and that leading to increasing unemployment in the lower-middle class. This occurs largely in the US and developed countries where technological advances contribute to higher demand for highly skilled labor but demand for middle-wage labor continues to fall. Economists call this trend "income polarization" where unskilled labor wages are driven down and skilled labor is driven up and it is predicted to continue in developed economies.[74]

Unemployment is becoming a problem in the U.S. due to the exponential growth rate of automation and technology. According to Kim, Kim, and Lee (2017:1), "[a] seminal study by Frey and Osborne in 2013 predicted that 47% of the 702 examined occupations in the U.S. faced a high risk of decreased employment rate within the next 10–25 years as a result of computerization." As many jobs are becoming obsolete, which is causing job displacement, one possible solution would be for the government to assist with a universal basic income (UBI) program. UBI would be a guaranteed, non-taxed income of around 1000 dollars per month, paid to all U.S. citizens over the age of 21. UBI would help those who are displaced take on jobs that pay less money and still afford to get by. It would also give those that are employed with jobs that are likely to be replaced by automation and technology extra money to spend on education and training on new demanding employment skills. UBI, however, should be seen as a short-term solution as it doesn't fully address the issue of income inequality which will be exacerbated by job displacement.

Lights-out manufacturing

Lights-out manufacturing is a production system with no human workers, to eliminate labor costs.

Lights out manufacturing grew in popularity in the U.S. when General Motors in 1982 implemented humans "hands-off" manufacturing to "replace risk-averse bureaucracy with automation and robots". However, the factory never reached full "lights out" status.[75]

The expansion of lights out manufacturing requires:[76]

  • Reliability of equipment
  • Long-term mechanic capabilities
  • Planned preventive maintenance
  • Commitment from the staff

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 vice versa.[

metal working, were always early contenders for automation.[dubious ][citation needed
]

The automation of vehicles could prove to have a substantial impact on the environment, although the nature of this impact could be beneficial or harmful depending on several factors. Because

anti-lock brakes or laminated glass) would not be required for self-driving versions. Removing these safety features would also significantly reduce the weight of the vehicle, thus increasing fuel economy and reducing emissions per mile. Self-driving vehicles are also more precise concerning acceleration and breaking, and this could contribute to reduced emissions. Self-driving cars could also potentially utilize fuel-efficient features such as route mapping that can calculate and take the most efficient routes. Despite this potential to reduce emissions, some researchers theorize that an increase in the production of self-driving cars could lead to a boom in vehicle ownership and use. This boom could potentially negate any environmental benefits of self-driving cars if a large enough number of people begin driving personal vehicles more frequently.[77]

Automation of homes and home appliances is also thought to impact the environment, but the benefits of these features are also questioned. A study of energy consumption of automated homes in Finland showed that

smart homes could reduce energy consumption by monitoring levels of consumption in different areas of the home and adjusting consumption to reduce energy leaks (e.g. automatically reducing consumption during the nighttime when activity is low). This study, along with others, indicated that the smart home's ability to monitor and adjust consumption levels would reduce unnecessary energy usage. However, new research suggests that smart homes might not be as efficient as non-automated homes. A more recent study has indicated that, while monitoring and adjusting consumption levels do decrease unnecessary energy use, this process requires monitoring systems that also consume a significant amount of energy. This study suggested that the energy required to run these systems is so much so that it negates any benefits of the systems themselves, resulting in little to no ecological benefit.[78]

Convertibility and turnaround time

Another major shift in automation is the increased demand for

Automated Guided Vehicles
with Natural Features Navigation.

Digital electronics helped too. Former analog-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.

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems.[79]

Automation tools

Engineers can now 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 as 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 design, analysis, and manufacture of products enabled by CAx has been beneficial for industry.[80]

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.[81]

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 the industrial process and manufacturing environments, they are called operators or something similar. In boiler houses and central utility departments, they are called stationary engineers.[82]

Different types of automation tools exist:

Host simulation software (HSS) is a commonly used testing tool that is used to test the equipment software. HSS is used to test equipment performance concerning factory automation standards (timeouts, response time, processing time).[83]

Cognitive automation

Cognitive automation, as a subset of AI, is an emerging genus of automation enabled by

evidence-based learning.[85]

According to Deloitte, cognitive automation enables the replication of human tasks and judgment "at rapid speeds and considerable scale."[86] Such tasks include:

Recent and emerging applications

CAD AI

Artificially intelligent computer-aided design (CAD) can use text-to-3D, image-to-3D, and video-to-3D to automate in 3D modeling.[87] Ai CAD libraries could also be developed using linked open data of schematics and diagrams.[88] Ai CAD assistants are used as tools to help streamline workflow.[89]

Automated power production

Technologies like

battery storage
—can automate power production.

Agricultural production

Many agricultural operations are automated with machinery and equipment to improve their diagnosis, decision-making and/or performing. Agricultural automation can relieve the drudgery of agricultural work, improve the timeliness and precision of agricultural operations, raise productivity and resource-use efficiency, build resilience, and improve food quality and safety.[90] Increased productivity can free up labour, allowing agricultural households to spend more time elsewhere.[91]

The technological evolution in agriculture has resulted in progressive shifts to digital equipment and robotics.[90] Motorized mechanization using engine power automates the performance of agricultural operations such as ploughing and milking.[92] With digital automation technologies, it also becomes possible to automate diagnosis and decision-making of agricultural operations.[90] For example, autonomous crop robots can harvest and seed crops, while drones can gather information to help automate input application.[91] Precision agriculture often employs such automation technologies[91]

Motorized mechanization has generally increased in recent years.[93] Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where the adoption of motorized mechanization has stalled over the past decades.[94][91]

Automation technologies are increasingly used for managing livestock, though evidence on adoption is lacking. Global automatic milking system sales have increased over recent years,[95] but adoption is likely mostly in Northern Europe,[96] and likely almost absent in low- and middle-income countries.[97][91] Automated feeding machines for both cows and poultry also exist, but data and evidence regarding their adoption trends and drivers is likewise scarce.[91][93]

Retail

Many

supermarkets and even smaller stores are rapidly introducing self-checkout systems reducing the need for employing checkout workers. In the U.S., the retail industry employs 15.9 million people as of 2017 (around 1 in 9 Americans in the workforce). Globally, an estimated 192 million workers could be affected by automation according to research by Eurasia Group.[98]

Kiva Systems
.

Food and drink

KUKA industrial robots being used at a bakery for food production

The food retail industry has started to apply automation to the ordering process;

robots is sometimes employed to replace waiting staff.[102]

Construction

Automation in construction is the combination of methods, processes, and systems that allow for greater machine autonomy in construction activities. Construction automation may have multiple goals, including but not limited to, reducing

jobsite injuries, decreasing activity completion times, and assisting with quality control and quality assurance.[103]

Mining