Application of Industrial Automation in Manufacturing

Posted by kingstar on December 3rd, 2019

Industrial automation can also be referred to as automatic control; it is the use of different control systems to operating industrial equipment like factory processes, machineries, aircrafts, ships stabilization and steering, an switching of telephone networks among others with the aim of reducing human intervention. Note that, as the Internet of Things continue to heighten, some industrial processes have been automated completely where they are executed without human intervention. Industrial automation is achieved through different means such as; electrical, computers, mechanical, pneumatic, electronic, and hydraulic that are applied in together in some cases. For instance, complicated systems like ships, aircrafts, and some modern factories make use of all these automation techniques to ensure effective and high performance.

Though industrial engineers always worked towards achieving fully automated industries, the industrial Automation wave hit in the 1980’s when car manufacturer introduced the lights out car manufacturing technology. The idea was triggered by the need to out-do competitors by automating their factories and leaving all the hard car manufacturing tasks to robots.

Application of industrial automation in manufacturing

As explained above, industrial automation is the use of intelligent machineries that reduce human intervention in different manufacturing processes. As such, it entails the use of a wide range of control systems that enable industrial equipment to operate on their own with little to no human intervention. Industrial automation is mainly applied to execute tasks that require high endurance, speed, and precision. The main benefits of applying industrial automation in manufacturing processes include; having leaner manufacturing processes requiring less energy input, reduction of labor wastage and less wastage of materials. This in turn guarantees precision, accuracy and quality of the end products. However, industrial automation application in manufacturing has one core downside which is, high initial installation costs. This bars most small industries from taking advantage of industrial automation fully because they lack the required resources.

Though the lights out car manufacturing concept has never been fully achieved, there has been remarkable progress. For instance, most of the high precision and repetitive car assembly tasks are executed by robots. Additionally, the industrial robots used today possess a high degree of operational freedom, better vision systems, and high computing capabilities to ensure that they get the job right with the first attempt. Nonetheless, their use is limited to highly structured industrial environments and they still require human intervention to a large extent. Note that, the industrial robots may not be flexible for small and medium industries. Therefore, they are dubbed tools for large n=manufacturers and long production runs.

Summary

With the growing industry 4.0 campaigns, the application of industrial automation in manufacturing sectors is bound to increase. Manufacturing will soon be solely dependent on the capabilities offered by automation software and industrial computers. Most importantly, manufacturing industries will ensure efficient utilization of human resources, raw materials, and energy.