The signs of the existence of industrial automation date back to the mid-18th century, with the improvement of production processes in England. However, it was only in the 1950s that the term became popular. Today, the word is widely used when it comes to replacing human labor with the use of electronics.
Automation is a variant of automation and comes from the Latin word Automatus, which means "to move by itself." Automation means the act of automating.
Automation can refer to a system that uses automatic processes to perform activities and check its own operation in tasks that were previously done by humans.
Another example of automation is what happens when a person spends a lot of time performing the same function. With repetition, humans use less of their brain in performing the same task, being able to do it more quickly, automatically, and with less chance of error.
The context of automation is intertwined with the idea of machines that speed up tasks, increasing productivity almost always without human interference. However, there is a type of automation that fits human work that is performed in many industries, in a continuous and repetitive, almost "robotic" way.
ADVANTAGES OF INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION
Since its inception after the year 1950, with the development of electronics, automation has allowed the emergence of information technology and the automation of industries, with the use of modern production techniques, particularly robotics, which is the use of robots controlled by computers that perform the work of humans, replacing them in the production of economic goods or commodities. Automation is of great importance for the modernization of industrial processes.
The automation of processes adds value, generating significant improvements applied to people and industries. In this regard, the main benefits of industrial automation for industries are:
● Increased productivity;
● Improved quality of the final product;
● Cost reduction;
● Competitiveness.
The automation market is integrated into the basic segments of the industry such as: Automotive; Chemical; Food; Agricultural; Pharmaceutical; Petrochemical; Metallurgical; and in the production of machines and equipment in general. Currently, it is difficult to assume that any industry can function without automated systems and exclusively human labor for the production of goods.
Regardless of the size of the company, organizations need some type of equipment or system to support their production processes, both due to daily developments and for the safety of employees or stakeholders.
WHAT IS INDUSTRY 4.0?
Industry 4.0, also known as the fourth industrial revolution, is an expression that encompasses some technologies for automation with data exchange and uses concepts of cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing. The fourth industrial revolution is a continuous act of industrial automation.
The concept of Industry 4.0 involves and groups all technological innovations in the fields of automation and information technology for manufacturing. Its main goal is to create faster, more flexible, and efficient processes.
Industry 4.0 enables the vision and execution of "Smart Factories" with their modular structures, cyber-physical systems that monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world, and make decentralized decisions.
With the Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems communicate and cooperate with each other and with humans in real-time, and through cloud computing, both internal and intra-organizational services are offered and used by the participants in the value chain.
These new technologies bring numerous opportunities to add value to customers and increase process productivity, but without proper focus, they can waste significant investments with little results.
PLANNING: THE RATIONAL SIDE OF ACTION TO INTEGRATE AUTOMATION WITH INDUSTRY 4.0
To understand the reality of your industry, evaluate the paths, build a future reference, establish the appropriate process and re-evaluate the entire process to which the integration is intended, good planning with the support of experienced companies and professionals is essential.
To become an Industry 4.0, it is necessary to generate a high level of articulation between the main technologies that make up the concept, the so-called pillars, which will be addressed in another text.
Vantec assists your industry in the sawmill, lamination, biomass, and recycling segments with industrial automation, integration, and adaptation for entry into the fourth industrial revolution.
Author: Estevão Schuh
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