Industrial Automation
The industrial automation is a technical discipline that studies, designs and manufactures electromechanical systems. Its aim is making production and transformation processes more effective and efficient.
Industrial automation arises from the combined use of many technical skills. The main ones are the mechanical design, the electrical design and the development of control algorithms.
Thanks to the industrial automation, repetitive processes can perform better, in terms of efficiency, safety and quality.
Manufacturing and transformation processes are carried out on a plant. By plant we mean a site where several automatic lines and machines are connected and cooperate with each other to complete the required process.
Over time, industrial automation has focused on various aspects of production: first, the purpose of automatic machines was to perform those activities too strenuous for humans, such as lifting weights or applying large forces.
Later machines supported large-scale production (mass production), focusing on speed.
In more recent times, the design of industrial automation has focused on production quality (i.e. repeatability) and on the safety of human operators.
Finally, the new paradigms of industrial automation use sophisticated control systems to achieve flexibility and to maximize the value of the human element in the plant.
Designing a plant or a machine requires to involve multiple skills and technologies. In modern industrial automation the design of algorithms and the development of highly complex real-time control software grew their importance because of the role of intelligent sensors, cameras and artificial intelligence.
In the first design phase the key matter is to understand the dynamics of the plant. A thorough analysis of the production flows is carried out. Then lines are sized, in terms of production capacity, availability and level of redundancy. This phase is often facilitated by the use of simulators and mathematical models that predict the operational scenarios of the plant.
Then the design focuses on the layout (arrangement) taking care of the accessibility topics and the maintenance needs of the plant.
The design of the single automatic machines requires the collaboration of IT specialist and automatic control experts, mechanical designers and professionals in electronics, hydraulics and pneumatics.
In this sense, industrial automation is a technically complex discipline because the design of a plant or a single machine requires many technical skills, in addition to the introduction of advanced technologies.
Constructing and implementing the plant
Industrial automation does not only include the design phase. Also the final construction of the system and its implementation are included.
A production line generally arises from the integration of commercial components, such as sensors, cables, PLCs, motors and electrical panels and custom-built components, such as electronic boards, structures, plates, brackets and other support and interconnection elements. Therefore, the plant design phase is followed by two activities which often are carried out in parallel: the creation of customized parts and the purchase of commercial components.
Thereafter, components are assembled, connected and configured at the company facilities and/or at the production site where the industrial automation system will be installed and will work.
The process carried out to make the plant fully productive depends on the complexity and on many other factors, such as pre-existing parts, civil works and guarantee of continuity. Generally, the system is divided into modules or areas that first are individually tested and then integrated together. Depending on the type of processed product, the actual commissioning can be carried out through test-decks, mock-up or real products.
Evolution and maintenance
A lively and flexible organization revolves around the plant, made up of human and economic components, which evolves and grows over time following market needs.
Industrial automation must also play its part: the designed systems have to be easily maintainable so they can evolve over time to be efficient and suitable for new needs.
Advanced features, such as predictive maintenance, adaptability, connectivity between machines and advanced modeling systems are just some of the tools the new Industry 4.0 makes available to create the future plants: flexible, reliable and safe.
