AUTOMATION

In some of the world's biggest factories there is scarcely a man in sight. Yet all around machinery is turning and products are being made. How is this possible? By automation, or the automatic control of machines.

The machines are controlled not by workers turning knobs or pulling levers, but automatically by a series of 'instructions' fed into them on punched cards or magnetic tape. All an operator has to do is to insert the card or tape into a control unit for the machine and press the starting button. Sometimes he does not even have to do that. The machine may be under the remote control of a computer, or 'electric brain'.

Information about what the machine is doing is fed back constantly to the control unit. There it is compared with what the machine should be doing. If there is any difference, the machine corrects itself instantly. This kind of feedback of information makes the machine self-regulating and is the real key to automation. The devices that control and correct the machines are called servomechanisms.

Automation is widespread in the petroleum and chemical industries, where the processes involve the flow of liquids and gases at certain temperatures and pressures. Self-regulating devices for flow, temperature and pressure are relatively simple.

The word automation is also used to describe the use of machinery to save manual labor. The trend in industry over the last two hundred years has been increasing mechanization and streamlining of production techniques.