Automation

The machine is known to be the major and efficient means of labour in modern production. The machine-building industry produces various kinds of machinery and machine-tools to meet the requirements of engineering branches as well as the light and food industries. The engineering industry is characterized by such features as increased capacities and speeds of machinery, the replacement of mechanical control systems by electrical and hydraulic ones. It is characterized by simplification of machinery design, an increasing use of automatic devices and the introduction of programmed control techniques on a mass scale. Automation of production means producing automatic and semiautomatic machinery, machine-tools, numerically controlled machines based on microprocessors and microcomputers, installing transfer lines. It is a key production for the building of the material and technical base of economy. What is automation? Shortly speaking, automation consists of four integral parts: transfer machines, automatic assembly, communication engineering and control engineering. There is difference between mechanization and automation. In automation the functions of control, maintaining machines are transferred to other machines while in mechanization these functions are transferred to the working mechanisms.

The mechanized and automated production lines replace the work of a tremendous number of workers. There are fully automated enterprises such as chemical and hydro-power plants. The development and mass production of new types of computer technology makes it possible to exclude man from the entire technological processes.

The so-called flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are able to meet the demands of industry. They are considered to be the future of the automated plant.

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