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The highly increasing competitiveness in today's industry demands higher quality and more consistent products at a competitive price. To address this challenge, many industries focus on the design of new products and integrated manufacturing techniques, in parallel with the use of automated devices.
One of the notable and influential movements to obtain solutions to the aforementioned challenge is industrial automation, which allows increasing product quality, reliability and production speed, while reducing design and manufacturing costs by adopting new, innovative and integrated technologies and services.
The automation (or automation) Industrial is the use of control systems, such as computers or robots, and information technologies, for managing processes and machinery in an industry, with the aim of replacing humans. It is the next step to mechanization, in the field of industrialization.
In other words, it is the replacement with computers and machines of human decision-making in a mechanization process.
It can also be defined as the use of technologies and automatic control systems that result in the operation and control of industrial processes in an automatic way, without significant human intervention, achieving a performance superior to manual control. These automation devices include PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers), PCs, PACs (Programmable Automation Controllers), etc. and the technologies include various industrial communication systems.
The integration of various processes in the industry with automated machinery minimizes cycle times and effort, and therefore the need for human labor is reduced. This results in less investment in staff and employees.
The automation of factories and industrial processes improve production rates through better control of it. Helps achieve mass production, dramatically reducing assembly time per product with higher quality. On the other hand, it allows industries to operate 24 hours a day.
Since automation reduces human involvement, the possibility of human error is also eliminated. It allows maintaining a level of quality and homogeneity of products, through adaptive control and monitoring of industrial processes in all stages, from the beginning to the final product.
Increases the level of safety for personnel, replacing them with industrial robots and automatic devices in dangerous working conditions.
The addition of a new task on the assembly line involves the necessary training for all the manual operators involved. Instead, robots and machines can be programmed to perform all kinds of tasks, allowing greater flexibility in the production process.
Automatic data acquisition allows you to collect key production information, increasing data accuracy and minimizing acquisition costs. This contributes to better decision making when it comes to improving industrial processes.
Automation completely reduces the need to manually check process parameters. Taking advantage of automation technologies, industrial processes automatically adjust process variables to set or desired values using closed-loop control techniques.
Industrial automation systems can be very complex by nature, having a large number of devices working in synchronization with automation technologies. The hierarchical arrangement of the automation system consists of different levels.
It is the lowest level. Includes field devices such as sensors and actuators. The main task of these field devices is to transfer process and machine data to the next higher level for monitoring and analysis. And it also includes the control of process parameters through actuators. As an example, we could describe this level as the eyes and arms of a particular process.
Sensors convert real-time parameters (such as temperature, pressure, flow, level, etc.) into electrical signals. This data is then transferred to the controller to monitor and analyze the real-time parameters. Sensors include thermocouples, proximity sensors, RTDs, flow meters, etc.
On the other hand, actuators convert electrical signals (from controllers) into mechanical means to control processes. Flow control valves, solenoid valves, pneumatic actuators, relays, DC motors, and servo motors are examples of actuators.
This level is made up of various automation devices such as CNC machines, PLCs, etc., which acquire the process parameters of various sensors. Automatic controllers actuate the actuators based on the processed signals from the sensors and on programming or control technique.
Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) are the most widely used industrial controllers that are capable of providing automatic control functions based on sensor input. They consist of various modules such as CPUs, analog inputs / outputs, digital inputs / outputs, and communication modules. Allows the operator to program a control function or strategy to perform certain automatic operations during the process.
At this level, automatic devices and monitoring systems, such as Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) provide the control and intervention functions. These functions include monitoring various parameters, setting production targets, archiving history, starting and stopping the machine, etc.
In general, the most used devices at this level are Distribution Control Systems (DCS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA ) HMIs).
This is the top level of industrial automation that manages the entire automation system. Tasks at this level include production planning, customer and market analysis, purchasing and sales, etc. Therefore, it deals more with commercial activities and less with technical aspects.
On the other hand, another prominent component in industrial automation systems are industrial communication networks, which transfer information from one level to another. These networks are present at all levels of the automation system to provide a continuous flow of information. However, communication networks can be different from one level to another. Some of these networks include RS485, CAN, DeviceNet, Foundation Field bus, Profibus, etc.
From the above hierarchy we can conclude that there is a continuous flow of information from high to low level and vice versa. If we assume this graphical form, it is like a pyramid in which the information is grouped as we go up and we get detailed information about the process as we go down.
This type of automation is used to perform fixed and repetitive operations in order to achieve high production rates. Uses dedicated or special purpose equipment to automate fixed sequence processing or assembly operations. Once defined, it is relatively difficult to change or vary the design of the product. Therefore, it is inflexible in providing variety of products, but increases efficiency with higher production rate and reduces unit cost.
As an example, fixed automation systems are often used in distillation processes, paint shops, conveyors, etc.
In this automation, a specific class of product changes, as well as assembly or processing operations, can be changed by modifying the control program on the automated equipment.
This automation is best suited for the batch production process, where the product volume is medium to high. But in this, it is difficult to change and reconfigure the system for a new product or sequence of operations. Therefore, extensive setup time is required to vary the sequence of operations or adopt a new product.
Examples of this type of automation are: numerical control machines and tools, paper mills, steel mills, industrial robots, etc.
This automation system provides automatic control equipment that offers great flexibility to make changes to product design. These changes can be made quickly through commands given in the form of codes by human operators.
This type of automation allows manufacturers to produce multiple products through a combined process rather than separate ones.
Some of the examples of this automation system are: automatic guided vehicles, automobiles, and multifunction CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines.
