Automation in detail :- Types, Condition for Automation, Different Strategies, Advantages, Dis-advantages

AUTOMATION

It is a technology concerned with the application of mechanical, electronic, and computer-based systems to operate and control production in order to improve productivity.

This technology includes:

• Automatic machine tools to process parts.
• Automatic assembly machines, Industrial robots.
• Automatic material handling and storage systems.
• Automatic inspection systems for quality control.
• Feedback control and computer process control.
• PC framework for arranging, information assortment and dynamic to help producing exercises.

Examples of industries using these types of system include: metal working, electronics, automotive, appliances, aircraft and many others.

Types of Automation:

Automated production systems is categories into three basic types:

1) Fixed Automation

2) Programmable Automation

3) Flexible Automation.

Fixed Automation:- Fixed automation is a system in which the arrangement of processing (or assembly) operations is fixed by the equipment composition. The operations in the sequence are generally simple.

Merits and demerits of fixed automation are as follows:

1. High initial investment of custom-engineered equipment.
2. High production rates.
3. Relatively inflexible in accommodating product changes.

Examples: Mechanized assembly lines, machining transfer lines.

Programmable Automation:- In programmable automation, the production machinaries are designed with the capability to change the arrangments of operations to perform different product compositions. The sequencing of operation is controlled by a specific program, which is already a set of coded instructions. It means, according to the product configuration, new programs are made, fed into the system and interpreted by the system.

 Merits and demerits of programmable automation are as follows:

1. High investment in general purpose equipment.
2. Low production rates relative to fixed automation.
3. Flexibility to deal with any changes in final product configuration.
4. Most suitable for batch production.

      Examples: Numerically controlled machine tools and industrial robots.

 

Flexible Automation:- Flexible automation is an upgrade of programmable automation. A flexible automated system is one which is capable of producing a variety of products (or parts) with virtually no time lost for changeovers from one product to the next. There is no production time lost while reprogramming the system and allotting the physical setup (tooling, fixtures, machine settings).

 Thus, the framework can deliver different mixes and timetables of items, rather than necessitating that they be made in independent groups.

Merits and demerits of flexible automation are as follows:

1. High investment for a custom-engineered system.
2. Continuous production of variable mixtures of products.
3. Medium production rates.
4. Flexibility to deal with product design variations.

      Example: Flexible automation are systems for performing different machining operations.

The fundamental features that distinguish it from programmable automation are :

• The capacity to change part programs with no cost production time.
• The capability to change over the physical setup, again with no cost production time.

 

Situation under which a manufacturing concern thinks of automating its production system

A manufacturing concern thinks of automating its production system because of following reasons:

1. Increased productivity: Computerization of assembling activities holds the guarantee of expanding the efficiency of work, This implies more noteworthy yield in each hour of work input.Higher production rates (output per hour) are achieved with automation than with corresponding manual operations

2. High cost of labour : The pattern in the industrialized social orders of the world has been toward always expanding work costs. Therefore, Higher interest in computerized hardware has got financially reasonable to supplant manual tasks. The significant expense of work is driving business pioneers to substitute machines for human work Because machines can deliver at higher paces of yield, the utilization of robotization brings about a lower cost for every unit of item.

3. Labour shortages: In many advanced been a general shortage of labour. For example, West Germany has been forced to import labour to augment its own labour supply Labour shortages also stimulate the development of automation as a substitute of labour.

4. Trend of labour toward the service sector: This pattern has been particularly common in the United States. In any case, there are additionally friendly and institutional powers that are liable for the pattern The development of government work at the bureaucratic, state and nearby levels has devoured a specific portion of the work market which may somehow have gone into assembling. Additionally, there has been a propensity for individuals to see production line function as dreary, disparaging and filthy. This view has made them look for work in the assistance area of the economy. (government, protection, individual administrations, legitimate, deals, and so on).

5. Safety:. Via mechanizing the activity and moving the administrator from a functioning investment to an administrative job, work is made more secure. The safety and physical well-being of the worker has become a national objective with the enactment of the Occupation Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHO). It has likewise given a driving force to robotization.

6. High cost of raw materials: The significant expense of crude materials in assembling brings about the requirement for more prominent proficiency in utilizing these materials. The decrease of scrap is one of the advantages of robotization.

7. Improved product quality: Automated operations not only produce parts at faster rates than to their manual counterparts, but they produce parts with greater consistency and conformity to quality specifications.

8. Reduced manufacturing lead time: For reasons that we shall examine in subsequent chapters, automation allows the manufacturer to reduce the time between custom order and product delivery. This gives the maker an upper hand in advancing great client care.

9. Reduction of in-process inventory: Holding enormous inventories of work-in-measure addresses a tremendous expense for the maker, since it ties up capital. In-measure, stock is of no worth. It fills none of the needs of crude materials stock or completed item stock. As needs be, it is to the producer's benefit to lessen work-in-progress to a base. Computerization will in general achieve this objective by decreasing the time a work part spends in the plant.

10. High cost of not automation: A significant competitive advantage is gained by automating a manufacturing plant. Organizations stop and that don't computerize are probably going to end up in a difficult situation with their clients, their representatives, and the overall population.

 

Situations where automation is applicable:

The manufacturing situations, which are suitable for automation, are:

1. When a product design is stable for such a long period in which cost of automation can be written off, automation can well be adopted.
2. When the volume for continuous manufacture is adequate and steady for a fairly long time so as to make the installation economically profitable and to permit the use of single purpose equipment.
3. When the manufacturing method demands a high degree of manual work and adoption of automation prevents attractive cost saving potential.
4. When the machines are so complex, or work on such a high speed that it is not possible to work on them efficiently by manual method.
5. When the product is so hazardous that it cannot possibly be controlled by manual methods like in case of radioactive elements.

Different Automation Strategies:

There are certain fundamental strategies that can be employed to improve productivity in manufacturing operations and are listed as follows:

Specialisation of operations: This strategy involves the use of special-purpose equipment designed to perform one operation with the greatest possible efficiency. This is comparable to the idea of work specialization, which has been utilized to improve work usefulness.

Combined operations: Creation happens as a succession of tasks. Complex parts may require handfuls, or even many preparing steps. The technique of joined tasks includes decreasing the quantity of unmistakable creation machines or workstations through which the part should be directed.

Simultaneous operation: In actuality, at least two preparing activities are being performed at the same time on the equivalent workpart, in this manner decreasing all out handling time.

Integration of operations: It is to interface a few workstations into a solitary coordinated instrument utilizing computerized work taking care of gadgets to move parts between stations.

Increased flexibility: Thereby reducing setup time and programming time for the production machine.

Improved material handling and storage: Through automated material handling and storage, a lot non-operative time can be reduced and hence reduction in lead time.

On-line inspection: Investigation for nature of work is generally performed after the interaction. On-line review into the assembling interaction licenses remedies to the cycle as item is being made. This lessens scrap and brings the general amount of item nearer to the ostensible determinations proposed by the fashioner.

Process control and optimisation: This include a wide range of control schemes intended to operate the individual process and associated equipment more efficiently.

Plant operations control: This technique is worried about control at the plant level. It attempts to manage and co-ordinate the aggregate operations in the plant more efficiently.

Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM): CIM involves extensive use of computer applications, computer databases, and computer networking in the company.

Advantages of Automation:

• Automation is the key to the shorter workweek. There has been and is a pattern toward less working hours and more relaxation time.
• Automation brings safer working conditions for the worker, since there is less direct physical participation by the worker in the production process, there is a less chance of personal injury to the worker.
• Automated production brings about lower costs and better items. It has been assessed that the expense to machine one unit of item by traditional universally useful machine devices requiring human administrators might be multiple times the expense of assembling the same unit using automated mass-production techniques. The electronic industry offers many examples of improvements in manufacturing technology that have significantly reduced costs while increasing product value (e.g., colour TV sets, stereo equipments and computers).
• The development of the computerization business will itself give work openings. 
• Automation is the just methods for expanding our way of life. Only through productivity increases brought about by new automated methods of production will be able to advance our standard of living. 

Disadvantages of Automation:

• Automation will bring about the enslavement of the person by a machine. Then again, computerization will in general exchange the expertise needed to perform work from human administrators to machines. In this manner, it diminishes the requirement for talented work. The manual work left by automation. Tasks requiring the overall level of manufacturing labour will be upgraded, not downgraded.
• There will be reduction in the labour force, with resulting unemployment. It is intelligent to contend that the quick impact of robotization will be to lessen the requirement for human work, in this manner, uprooting labourers. 
• Automation will reduce purchasing power. As machines supplant labourers and these specialists join the joblessness positions, they won't get the wages important to purchase the items brought via computerization, so that inventories will develop. Production will stop and the result will be a massive economic depression.

 

                Comment if you Like the post OR have any Query Related to this

Thank You

💓