As the industrial landscape changes rapidly, it becomes even more vital for companies to maintain a competitive edge. When it comes to being efficient and keeping machines working as much as possible, there is nothing that can quite compare with automation. It is rapidly becoming the installation method of choice for many reasons. For the purposes of this article, we will look closer at a handful of them.
Enhancing Efficiency Through Automation
Plant equipment installation is simplified by automated systems that use sophisticated robotics and software solutions. The "pluses" -- when it comes to plant equipment and systems -- include elimination of drudgery, shortening the time of plant setup and machinery configuration can be a key part in reducing "time to first product" and assuring a fast rate of assimilation into plant operations. (That comparison to a "fast to making parts" isn't far-fetched: Robots are going to be 2.4 times faster than they were 20 years ago, and there are a lot more of them.)
Using automation boosts resource use. Automation can now take over from a human and perform tasks we define as a sequence of steps. These steps used to be done manually for every product produced, but automation has the power to do them much more consistently and much faster. This power of processing is just one side of the benefit of automation. Resource optimization is the other benefit. With a labor-saving device in place, you can often see a better use of energy and materials, with less waste produced.
Plant equipment is monitored and controlled in real time thanks to automation. Feedback is given instantly on how well the machines are performing, allowing adjustments to be made at a moment’s notice. This ensures uninterrupted production and maintains the efficiency of the processes. In addition to this, the plant is constantly taking large amounts of data and analyzing it in real-time to identify any other areas that might need attention for an improvement to occur.
Real-Time Monitoring and Control: Automation enables
Automated systems guarantee that the production process yields the same results every time. They do this by faithfully following a set of rules and parameters that are defined at the outset of the process. These instructions are then fed into the system and enacted with each product that comes down the assembly line. When using human beings, good conditioning cannot be assumed. In fact, it's fair to say that human performance tends to be more variable than machine performance, as much because humans tend to get tired or lose focus over the course of doing a repetitive task as due to their individual cognitive limitations. And unlike human workers, whose performance can degrade with fatigue, machines tend to be at least as accurate when producing the first part as they are when producing the last part.
There are many advantages to automation in an industrial setting. For one, it helps ensure that maintenance is performed with a level of foresight and anticipation that humans alone cannot always achieve. Using a combination of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other technologies commonly associated with the Internet of Things (IoT), manufacturing equipment is under constant "surveillance" and can "alert" humans to possible "breakdowns" before they happen. This is the notion of "predictive maintenance."
Plant installations are being revolutionized by automation. It's making things work so much more efficiently and it's cutting down a ton on the amount of time things need to be shut down to fix problems. It's a real-time saver because it allows for the diagnosis and troubleshooting of issues to not only be done more quickly but also to be done more effectively. On top of that, by using automation in this way, we also end up having no disruptions because a lot of setups have built-in redundancies.
Conclusion
The modern industry is very keen on automating its processes. Of course, this is done with the hope that it will result in increased efficiencies and reduced downtime. However, to the industry, the move toward automation is much more than these immediate technological advancements. It is not very different from the alternate world where humans interact minimally and let robots interact more with one another. In essence, what I am getting at is that I am investing in what seems to be a more competitive and certainly a much more productive industry for tomorrow.