|
|
|
||||||||
AllenWeb
What Do We Mean
When We Say "Automation Systems?"
Defined in Dec 99, UPDATED 1 Jan 02
Automation Systems Today
Today, there are several levels of automation out there. Although it has received definition by many, its attributes and aspects continue to change. For the time being, however, for the sake of defining what we mean in automation systems, we shall attempt to plagarize those before us who have pioneered us to this point.
There was a time when the competitive struggles for industrial survival took place within a country's borders. Worldwide barriers to transportation, communication, and trade provided a measure of insulation between a country's industries and their foreign competitors. Even more important was the financial and technological advantage possessed by a privileged few industrialized nations that seem impregnable to the leaders of industries of less developed nations. But the luxuries wrought for the rich nations by these competitive barriers have become their weaknesses - the chinks in the armor that formerly protected them from industrial competition. High wage rates, inefficient management, and obsolete factories are among these luxuries, which have allowed hungrier competition to break down the barriers and seize markets using low wages, determined management, and new factories that employ some of the latest technology developed by the very countries that are under economic seige.
The United States of America has seen its position as world manufacturing leader under serious question in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. Some have seen robotics as a possible savior to reverse the trend. Others have despaired that even robotics will not impede what they consider to be the inevitable demise of the industrial colossus that has been the United States. However, toward the end of the decade of the 1980s, some rays of hope began to shine through.
Despite intense wage rate competition and the commitment to quality of such industrialized countries as Japan, the United States has a tremendous advantage over other countries in manufacturing. This advantage is the presence of a very large and ready domestic market for its products. Canada possesses nearly the same advantage as the United States because of its own market and proximity and excellent relationship with the large market of its neighbor to the south. Europe is seeking a similar advantage of its own by creating the European Common Market. The combined economies of the countries of Europe make up a large and powerful market base on which to build volume production with the associated economies of scale that U.S. industries have enjoyed.
For those industries that qualify, automation offers opportunities for quantum advances in productivity efficiency. - the kind of advances necessary to reverse trends, recapture markets, and break free from old constrictive ways. Automation is certainly not new, and in a broad sense it can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution when machines first began to multiply vastly the productive capability of workers. The history of automation, however, has not been characterized by a steady progression; instead, it has been a series of breakthroughs. One breakthrough was interchangeable manufacture; another was Henry Ford's assembly lines. One that is currently upon us a combination of robots, mechanized automation, integrated enterprise systems and business process engineering combined in various ways to yield above average results.
Regarding robots, they themselves are not the breakthrough, but are a product or result of the breakthrough. Robots have become the standard bearers of the current industrial automation movement and deserve the attention of any automation engineer who is involved in discrete-item manufacturing. The enterprise systems that have been developed in the automation of manufacturing facilities has now spilled out into many industies. An example of this is SAP.
SAP originated in manufacturing in order to assist in automating and expediting processes. The leap of R/2 (mainframe and funtional oriented) to R/3 (client-server and business process oriented) allowed tremendous progress in expanding this manufacturing "automation tool" to have a broader application to overall industries. This has resulted in an explosion in SAP R/3 enterprise systems and some of its lesser competitors (Baan, etc.) to become the standard bearers for automation of businesses in ways not before contemplated, especially in a fully integrated way. On top of all of this, was the requirement to "reengineer" the workplace through business process engineering. This is a requirement in order to implement any enterprise system (using client-servers that needs business processes clearly defined and modeled in order to operate successfully and produce the expected results).
Labor's Role in Automation
Automation certainly is not the only way to break out of constricting environments. When the chips are down, the response of labor has been remarkable. Demands for higher wages formerly seemed almost insatiable. In the United States, the labor leaders of the 1960s would have been incredulous had they been afforded a glimpse of the wage and benefits concessions made by labor unions in the 1980s.
In recent years it has sometimes appeared that labor has more determination to meet world competition than does management. In the 1980s and early 1990s large U.S. companies have become bankrupt or suffered severe cutbacks in operations or corporate mission. These cutbacks have resulted in numerous plant closings, sometimes accompanied by severe hardship, especially in small towns in which the plant was the major employer. So determined are labor and local management in these crises, that, in some cases, employee groups have mounted drives to buy the facility from the parent company and continue operations.
Another weapon that is being used as a competitive weapon is participative management. The first arena for the display of this weapon was product quality, and the most popular term describing participative management is still "quality circles."
Using the PERA (Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture) for examples of automation system levels,
- developed by major industries and academia
- PERA is the basis for ANSI ISA SP-95.01 (the open architecture standard for information flow in Manufacturing Enterprises)
- PERA is proposed as an international standard
- PERA is designed for process, manufacturing and service industries
- PERA provides full alignment between business, human, and technological requirements
- Visit the PERA website @ http://www.pera.net
we look at the following:
An Enterprise Consists of 3 Major Components
Enterprise PHYSICAL Systems & Facilities, PEOPLE (human), and Enterprise LOGICAL (Information Systems)
The Levels of Automation in Automation Systems - Integrated Enterprise LOGICAL Systems
Hence, our PMI Automation Systems SIG LOGO...a "three-input OR gate" logic diagram! 4 Jan 02
Integrated Enterprise Solutions Area
Levels 6 & 7 - Overall Enterprise Solutions/Systems
- Financial
- Overall Sales & Marketing
- Strategic Planning
- Overll Supply Chain and Production Distribution
Level 5 - Enterprise and Production Systems
- Sales & Marketing
- Quality Management
- Simulation Application
- Supply Chain Management
- Production Distribution
- Production Management
- Process Optimization
Standard Application Interfaces
Production Enterprise Systems
Level 4 - Sitewide Systems
- Plantwide Systems
- Data Reconciliation
- Lab/Information Management
- Advanced Control
- Operations Data & Logging
- Process & Event Historian
Application Interfaces
Control Systems
Levels 2 & 3 - Distributed Control Systems
Level 1 - Control Devices, Analyzers, Controllers
Control System Engineering
Level 0 - Flows, Pressure, Temp., Data Acquisition
The Levels of Automation in Automation Systems - Integrated Enterprise PHYSICAL Systems
Enterprise Integration and Communications Systems - In TIME Elements
Hours to Days - Internet/Intranet, Voice & Data WANs
- Regional Production, Distribution & Sales (Local T1, Satellite or Interent)
- Corporate Offices (Local T1, Satellite or Internet)
Minutes to Hours - Phones, PC Desktop Stations, PABX, Telephone & Radios, Enterprise Solutions
Seconds to Minutes - Phones, Engr. Sys., Lab Info Mgt, PC Desktop Stations, Process Historian, Operations, Radios
Milliseconds to Seconds - DCS Operator Stations and Controls Databases, Phones, Radios
Control Systems Interfaces and Activities
Continuous - Flow, pressure, temp. instr., Control Dev, Analyzers, Controllers, Motion Systems, etc.
Overall Work Areas and Approach in Automation Systems Projects
Enterprise Master Planning (PERA) |
||
|
Well, this gives you a flavor of what we are looking at. But quite frankly, no automation systems site can leave out the building blocks of automation at the work station and what got us along this path of enterprise automation. While we have looked at the overall automation of enterprises which includes many areas that are addressed in automating, the basic automation systems foundation at the shop floor (work station) must be listed for the sake of good order, so...
Basic Building Blocks in Automation at the Work Station Level
We can talk about components as primarily belonging to one of the following classes:
- Sensors
- Analyzers
- Actuators
- Drives
Sensors
Sensors are the first link between the typical automated system and the conventional process. Sensors convey information from the manufacturing process equipment, the piece part being manufactured, and from the human operator, if any. It may seem strange that the automated system senses the human operator, but this is without doubt the most important link between the automated system and the real world. Sensors can be as follows:
- Manual Switches
- Limit Switches
- Proximity Switches
- Photoelectric Sensors
- Infrared Sensors
- Fiber Optics
- Lasers
Analyzers
Once information is sensed by an automated system, it must be registered and analyzed for content, and then a decision must be made by the system as to what action should be taken. This function can be quite complex, and the system components that perform it are generally too complicated to discuss in detail here. But some of the components deserve mention here to enable you to understand the components of NC machines, robots, programmable controllers, and other manufacturing automation devices discussed.
- Computers
- Counters
- Timers
- Bar Code Readers
- Optical Encoders
Actuators
Once a real-world condition is sensed and analyzed, something may need to be done about it. It is at this point that the automation of many systems ceases because it is believed that a human operator must intervene and apply judgment for taking some kind of physical action. Such systems may be called "process monitoring" if they merely sense and display or record data or "on-line assist" if they also analyze data and give advice or prompts to the operator suggesting specific actions to be taken. However, more and more automated systems are closing the loop by taking physical action automatically without operator intervention.
Actuation may be a direct physical action upon the process, such as a sweep bar that sweeps items off a conveyor belt at the command of a computer or other analyzer. In other cases, an actuator is simply a physical making of an electrical circuit, which in turn has a direct effect upon the process. An example would be an actuator (relay) that turns on power to an electric furnace heating circuit. Examples are:
- Cylinders
- Solenoids
- Relays
Drives
Like actuators, drives take some action upon the process at the command of a computer or other analyzer. For purposes of classification, the distinction being made here between actuators and drives is that actuators are used to effect a short, complete, discrete motion - usually linear - and drives execute more continuous movements typified by, but not limited to, rotation. Actuators may turn drives on and off, and drives may provide the energy for the movement of actuators. Some automation devices, such as genevas and walking beams, seem to belong to both categories. Examples of drives are:
- Motors
- Stepper Motors
- DC Servo Motors
- Kinematic Linkages
- Genevas
- Walking Beams
In summary, the above has provided the "nuts and bolts" of mechanization and automation. Automation begins with a simple and sometimes not so simple mechanization of portions of the operation of individual work stations. Although it is wise to keep the systems approach in mind for total automation of a factory, plant or enterprise, in reality most factories are automated a piece at a time.
It is difficult to classify the components of mechanization and automation, but broad categories have been offered up. By describing types of integrated automation systems and their utility in manufacturing/processing, we have at least begun the educational process.
| The purpose for this SIG is to help non-automation industry folks and project managers understand more and in turn, help automation systems industry folks to understand the demands of project management in automation systems projects. Since we generally accept the premise that 95% (or more?) of all failures (and successes) in projects are people-related, and not technology-related, the goal here is excellence in the project management of automation projects. |
- END -