Unique Original Articles » Considering Automating Factories

In these days, the world is all about automation. No matter where you turn there is someone trying to figure out how to make designs to do production in a way that less personnel are required to do it. We as humans love having things done for us. No matter what it is, we would like to have machines that would do it for us. In this day and age there are already a many things that require very little of us to get done.

The same is true of industries the world over. To businesses there is the matter of making more money and they are always on the look out for ways to cut the costs to make the products they offer. This is where factory automation comes into play. A factory that relies heavily on automation has cheaper labor costs, making it less costly for the business to make products thereby increasing profits in many ways.

There is some debate on whether or not an automated factory is a good idea. Automation relies on machines, like robots to perform tasks that were at one time performed by a human. One of the problems is the fact that these robots and machines are very expensive for the most part, which means a very high up front investment for the company. Now they could, in theory, win back the investment in only a few years by not having to pay an employee to do the job, but what if the job becomes unnecessary? This can mean that they invested a lot of money that was unnecessary.

Next is the problem that robots do not have the ability to think or solve problems without assistance from outside parties, namely humans. Most experts would advise that robots only do the most mundane processes in a factory so they have no need to think. possibly so but what if something aborts with the process. Does the robot know to halt? Will it be able to solve the problem on its own? The answer to both of those questions is of course NO. The robot must be instructed what to do by a human and has no intelligence of its own.

The other factor is that using factory automation takes jobs away from the people who need them. This is the largest concern in the automation debate as it is known today. This is sometimes true and it might harm the economy because the more people that are out of jobs the worse the economy does. Unless these people should be trained for higher level jobs, that are more interesting and stimulating. Who wants to punch holes in the same pattern, in the same part every minute of every work day!

It is a positive idea for all intents and purposes to completely automate production facilities. The debate about this rages on but it is doubtful that machines will ever replace us humans completely.

Pierre Basson is an author and project manager. More automation articles and control engineering resources like this at www.factoryautomation.com .
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