Automation

Automation refers to a broad variety of technologies that are designed to eliminate the need for human involvement in operations. By predetermining decision criteria, subprocess linkages, and associated actions — and then embodying those predeterminations in computers — we can eliminate the need for human involvement.

In addition to the use of various equipment and control systems, such as machinery, factory processes, boilers, and heat-treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering and stabilisation of vessels and other applications and vehicles, automation also includes the use of robots and other devices to perform tasks that previously required human intervention.

From a simple thermostat controlling a boiler to a large industrial control system with hundreds of thousands of input measurements and thousands of output control signals, automation encompasses a wide range of situations and applications. Automated processes have also made their way into the banking industry. Control complexity can range from simple on-off control to multi-variable high-level algorithms, with the latter being the most common.

The most basic type of automatic control loop is one in which a controller compares a measured value of a process with a desired set value and processes the resulting error signal to change some input to the process in such a way that the process maintains its set point despite disturbances in the environment. This closed-loop control system is an example of how negative feedback may be used to a system. Efforts to establish the mathematical foundations of control theory began in the 18th century and expanded significantly in the twentieth.

Automation has been accomplished through a variety of methods, including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic, and computer devices, which are usually used in conjunction. Complex systems, such as modern factories, aeroplanes, and ships, typically make use of a variety of techniques that are combined. Labor reductions, waste reduction, power cost savings, material cost savings, and increases in quality, accuracy, and precision are some of the advantages of automating processes.

According to the World Bank's World Development Report 2019, there is evidence that the economic benefits of new sectors and employment in the technology sector exceed the economic costs of employees being replaced by automation in the long run.

Among the many factors contributing to the resurgence of nationalist, protectionist, and populist politics in countries including the United States, Britain, and France since the 2010s has been the blame placed on automation for job losses and downward mobility.

It wasn't until 1947 that Ford established an automation department that the term automation became widely accepted. It was derived from the earlier word automatic (which comes from automaton). It was during this period that the industrial sector began to quickly embrace feedback controllers, which had first appeared in the 1930s.