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Archive 1

Japan Robot Junkyards

I would like to know more about the "World Famous Japan Robot Junkyards" there are no references to this thing on the web

Mjan— I, too, didn't find much on the web. But you have to remember this was about 20 years ago; it may not have made it onto the web. (I have modified the statement.)
Best I could do was http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_12/b3724007.htm
If you are Japanese and located in Japan, perhaps you could research this.

⇒ normxxx| talk ⇒ email 15:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

history section

this article has a very long introduction. this part of an article is generally a brief description of the topic, not a history. it seems like most of this information could be a separate section called "history" or something to that extent. im going to create this section and move some of this information there. Twelvethirteen 03:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Automation is NOT limited to production

Automation is an economic and socially VERY disruptive technology. We stand in the foothills of the Third Industrial Revolution as well as some other similar revolutions connected to automation.

The article here is preoccupied with production -- which, of course, will always be a highly important application. However, the application most visible to the public -- and soon -- will be the automation of the automobile/truck and the automation of the soldier and heavy weapons.

Islamists/Jihadists -- BEWARE !!

What is more, automation will eventually impact the role of capital in presently entirely unanticipated ways. The classical analyses of the role of capital in society will become mostly irrelevant -- and worse, misleading. The costs of production will implacably tend toward zero along with the value and cost of capital.

Marx and Lenin will be rolling in their graves with lots of company from the opposing "capitalist" contingents.

Times are a' changing !! -- But no one seems to notice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.157.179.234 (talk) 09:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

Ongoing revisions.=

As presently written, the article is POV-heavy and needs better sourcing... It would also help to discuss industrial automation as it's viewed as a field of engineering, in addition to social analysis. I've made a few revisions to start. 128.32.192.90 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 22:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


Whoa, "But, after the railroads were built"... what, they're done? Maury 23:00, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC) i wan to learn more.

404 error

Reference number 1 returns a 404 error page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.101.75 (talk) 16:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the citation. Thanks for the comment. User A1 (talk) 00:51, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Can't make change due to spam lock

The second to last paragraph of the "impact" section is almost pure nonsense. Why is it talking about cryptography? This whole article needs citation.

97.121.173.238 (talk) 04:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)Josh

Its highly waffling, I agree, but not enough to bother me ;) . If you post your corrected version here, I can copy it across for you. Alternately, or for future edits, you can sign up for an account and wait/edit to obtain autoconfirmed status, which will allow you to gain access to edit semi-protected articles. User A1 (talk) 04:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Impact section lacking in citations

More work needs to be done on in the impact section. The section emphasizes the negative aspects of it more than the positive ones even though this is not the case for the section "Advantages and disadvantages". For these reasons, I have done substantial changes to the structure of the article.Kmarinas86 (6sin8karma) 17:40, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

What, no control room?

Photos of robots are not the best way to lead in talking about automation. Automation is automatic control, such as is done by factory operators in a control where they look over various data outputs. Historical examples are needed when there were dials and levers, lathouch input and output is now done on touchscreens and with deyboards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phmoreno (talk • contribs) 13:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Grammar Cleanup

I have flagged this article for grammar cleanup. For example the following section lacks a coherent sentence structure:

Economy improvement. Sometimes and some kinds of automation implies improves in economy of enterprises, society or most of humankind.

Waarmstr (talk) 13:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Split off section

The section on "Relationship to unemployment" has grown, under the editing of User:Three-quarter-ten, to dominate the article. I suggest we move it to its own article and leave a main link. I don't have much opinion on what the title should be. Any suggestion or objection? Dicklyon (talk) 04:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I had begun thinking about spinning it off, but had held off so far. I'm pretty sure that I'm done adding content to it. (Yesterday's addition was only one last afterthought; I think everything's been covered as much as possible.) My hesitance to split comes from the fact that then some people may try to delete the article or merge it into "Luddite fallacy", which is speciously appealing but logically inadequate (because the Luddite premise is only a part of the larger topic), but I won't be able to get that concept through any thick heads. What do you think of moving the section down toward the bottom? As for spinoff titles, not sure yet ... "Relationship of automation to unemployment" is my best thought so far, but I wonder if someone will come out of the woodwork saying that's a horrible title and renaming it to something that is actually more horrible still. Anyway, worth thinking further about ... — ¾-10 15:40, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, better get thinking about it, and pick a title that has some notability support in sources. It's way too much to leave here; too off-topic, too much unsourced, etc. I wouldn't be surprised it you get pushback elsewhere, but at least if it's more aligned with the article topic it will have a chance of surviving the deletionists (like me). Dicklyon (talk) 18:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, I follow what you're saying, but I have to correct part of it—true that it is too much for here right now, but there's actually nothing off-topic or not-aligned about the content—just some trouble with (a) the degree of need for spinning off (which is a matter of "related but tangential" rather than "not related"); and (b) the familiar old topic of gray literature not being citable in a way that publicly available books, journals, and websites are (such that an interested reader can click through and access the source themselves)—which is a recurring issue in science and technology, since the leading edge of thinking often happens within access-restricted environments (for example, intranets and private wikis). In other words, there's nothing truly novel or original about the content, yet publicly published material is scarce to unavailable (depending on which aspect of it). I do understand the challenge that that poses to an encyclopedia, but it means that we have to find a balance as opposed to deleting anything that is even touched by that theme, because you'd end up with incomplete coverage of what exists. An analogy that comes to mind is weapons systems—in 1948 it would have been difficult to describe the current status of nuclear technology using citations of books and journals, because most of the knowledge still resided largely in gray literature; yet that didn't mean that the current state of technology didn't exist yet. As I said, I do realize the challenge posed in finding the balance on that. — ¾-10 18:56, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
As nothing had happened since January and there were multiple issues with the section, I split it to Relationship of automation to unemployment. My first attempt at being bold, sorry if I stepped on any toes! Uwadb (talk) 13:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Good job, Uwadb, thanks. I felt that the newly split article needed a "more lede-like" lede, so I began further development. Later, — ¾-10 00:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Applications

This section has been marked for expansion since April. I think we need categories of applications, or we'd be left with a long untidy list. I've created a structure below, I'd love to hear your thoughts - feel free to edit and add sections. Not sure how to include Robotics, Control system. There seems to be a great deal of overlap between this article and Robotics, (ie Robotics#Autonomy levels) Uwadb (talk) 07:46, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Industrial

Building

Vehicle

Security

Software

Convenience

(not sure about this section - rename?)

Needs a short history

Needs to have a short history section, starting with automatic machine tools and covering late 19th century automation like the automatic glass blowing machine and the 20th century technologies.Phmoreno (talk) 02:39, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I found a history of automation in the history of process control (Bennett 1993. I added Bennett 1993 to Further reading and will turn my notes into a history section as soon as I have time. The history will allow for cleaning up the rest of the article. I may begin with a cleanup of the lede.Phmoreno (talk) 19:19, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Anyone with a instrumentation or process control background willing to help?

For this rewrite I would welcome collaboration with someone with hands on knowledge of automation or with knowledge of control theory. Ideally this person would be an instrumentation and controls engineer. Please leave your username on talk my page. Thanks.Phmoreno (talk) 00:42, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Happy to help in that area. The topic of this article is sooooo broad (basically this could cover every every piece of modern equipment or technology that contains electronics) that I would not want to work at the head-spinning task of deciding what goes in the article or how to write it. But happy to help in en specific industrial automation topics. North8000 (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Is it Really Automation?

So, I was looking to add clarity to a situation at work to distinguish between an "application" and a "service" in the context of refining our Service Oriented Architecture. Ended up at [Software] and was looking through "types" of applications.

One of the candidate distinctions was a "user interface." Most business applications have one; services do not.

But some applications do not have a UI -- anybody talk to the [[1]] (engine control unit) on their automobile lately?

Problem is that the Application Software article completely ignores such process control, industrial control applications.

And the Talk section, there, has a piece by someone who thought that stuff belonged here.

I don't think so. The verb, To Automate, suggests that a person WAS doing something and NOW a machine doing it. While that is often true, in my context, that is not always true.

Yes, at one time there was a manual choke on a gasoline fueled engine and a person set the mixture to "rich" to start and then "lean" after the engine had warmed up. But this operation was automated in the 1940s, or so, when the automatic choke was developed.

Which brings me to my purpose for writing today. The further development of some process control capability does not, in my opinion, in and of itself qualify as automation.

Monitoring intake air temperature and exhaust oxygen content represented, to be sure, better process management but they do not, in my opinion, qualify as "automation" for the simple reason that this was not, previously, a person-performed task that is now machine-performed.

I know, my primary beef is with "Application Software" but I offer these comments to the folks here because I think the term "automation" it not appropriate to some of the ideas presented here.

Johnny Cache 21:54, 4 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnny.cache (talk • contribs)

Automation vs automatic control?

The opening sentence suggests "automatic control" is an alternative term for "automation", but "automatic control" is a separate entry and so presumably a distinct thing, though I note the entry on "automatic control" is not given a place in the "Outline of automation" entry and there are suggestions to merge "automatic control" with "control theory". It's beyond my expertise to weigh in on the debate, but I don't think "automatic control" should be left as a suggested synonym for automation without further clarification. Move to delete suggested synonym as currently confusing.Faff296 (talk) 00:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

This appears spurious, especially when the "Outline of Automation" page is read. Automation is not just process control. It uses process control, but it uses a lot of other things also. I have re-written the lead to align with the "outline" article, and deleted the synonym. Also moved the detail of automatic control to the end, and tidied up a few other things. Dougsim (talk)

LCA?

Its all very interesting but it is obviously original research and personal opinion! It makes the whole article look bad. Can it be removed until someone sources it and then added back in?

I found the source for the LCA section.[1] It's from an Indian National Productivity Council training manual with no citations, so I think it'd be safe to say that this can be deleted, as it seems to be merely opinion rather than fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.10.236 (talk) 04:10, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://www.productivity.in/knowledgebase/Manufacturing%20Management%20Docs/Low%20Cost%20Automation/b.Low%20Cost%20Automation.pdf

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Thermostat is a feedback mechanism

An editor changed the word "feedback" to "on/off" in description of a thermostat, here and when i changed it back to "feedback" they reverted it. Anyway, i think an on-off (boolean or two-state) control is a special case of feedback, and that the feedback element is the relevant element here in the text. SageRad (talk) 05:18, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Here's a source describing a thermostat as feedback. Not the best source i'm sure but the first that came up in Google. SageRad (talk) 05:22, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
That is not a credible technical source related to automation. The term feedback originated in the fields of political economy and sociology, for which that source gave examples. In automation and process control, feedback control has a different meaning. Many engineers such as myself were required to take a course in control theory. For an introduction see: Section 3.1, p-31 Basic Feedback Loop: Feedback Control Theory. In a feedback control system a sensor measures a variable and feeds back a signal for comparison against a set point. The controller makes a calculation and sends a signal to adjust another system component (an actuator) which will change the measured variable in the direction of the set point. An old fashioned, simple thermostat system only turns something on or off and is referred to as "on-off" control by control engineers. For the history of control engineering the technically inclined reader is referred to:[1].Phmoreno (talk) 12:57, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Your experience and knowledge does not matter here, other editor. I also have extensive experience in engineering including serious control theory and have built many devices using feedback, and have read tons about it. A thermostat of the typical sort (boolean output in relation to a set point) is a form of feedback. It's a most basic form. Here is another source. Here is another source that uses a thermostat as a basic example of feedback. Here is yet another. Note that the word "feedback" here does not need to be used in a very constrained way, but in a general and common way, and in that sense, a thermostat is a sensor that provides feedback to the control unit that controls the plant of the heating and/or cooling plant of a system. SageRad (talk) 13:04, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm glad to see that you are well versed in the subject. That makes you perfectly qualified to write a couple of sentences describing boolean feedback control with the standard depiction in the textbook control diagram. Improve, don't just change. Regards.Phmoreno (talk) 13:25, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Two findings: 1. A thermostat is a temperature regulating device; however, the historical development was a mechanical controler rather than on-off control. This was before electricity and was applied to temperature control on an oven by means of regulating air supply. 2. "In 1951 the American Institute of Electrical Engineers published a set of 'Proposed Symbols and Terms for Feedback Control Systems' which has since been widely accepted by American engineers. It offers this definition: 'A Feedback Control System is a system which tends to maintain a prescribed relationship of one system variable to another by comparing functions of these variables and using the difference as a means of control.'"[2]Phmoreno (talk) 01:36, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Bennett, S. (1979). A History of Control Engineering 1800-1930. London: Peter Peregrinus Ltd. ISBN 0-86341-047-2. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  2. ^ Mayr, Otto (1969). The Origins of Feedback Control. Clinton, MA USA: The Colonial Press, Inc.

Thermostat can be both

A thermostat is a feedback controller, but can be either analogue or on/off. We are talking about two non-exclusive things here.

Dougsim (talk) 09:51, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Whether or not a thermostat is a feedback controller depends on finding 2 in the previous talk section, which provides a very clear definition of what a feedback controller is. The key is qualification is "comparing one variable to another and using the difference as a means of control." The "control" should have some relationship to the difference. On-off is not proportional, integral or differential control.16:59, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Controller type is being confused here with controller action (the form of the output). The thermostat is a closed loop type. For instance, the simplest model, a bi-metallic strip, compares the ambient air temperature with the temperature set on the dial, and generates an error, which is the mechanical stress in the strip. When it reaches a certain value the strip bends and a discrete switching action occurs. The controller type is effectively a high gain proportional controller with hysteresis, but the control action (the output) is on/off.Dougsim (talk) 07:33, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Page merge automation vs automatic control

Well, there's something wrong with the current "automatic control" page, because it has hardly any content, and trying to write it will result in a lot of duplication. I've suggested merging it into automation, but open to other page suggestions. Something has to be done with automatic control because it is a term commonly used. I think in the early days of PID controller development automatic control was understood by the few people involved in it to be continuous modulating control. In time meanings change, and the borderline between continuous modulating control and sequential and combinational control have been blurred because of the large systems that do all of them. and we should perhaps reflect that. Note that there is hardly anything to merge from automatic control, it's just a redirect. Comments? Dougsim (talk) 09:15, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

There are dozens of "control" pages around, and certainly I think now a mistake to merge with automation, so I'll give automatic control some meaningful text.Dougsim (talk) 16:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

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Just added quote from Milo L Henderson

I almost reverted it, and I could have cited at least 3 policies and guidelines for doing so, but perhaps it is a nice trigger to wikify it and incorporate that significant viewpoint into the article. North8000 (talk) 00:25, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Merge discussion March 2018

How is this article different from Automatic control, which is given as a synonym for "automation" in the lead sentence? There was some discussion at Talk:Automatic control of merging anything unique from that page to this one, but I don't the merge tags were ever applied. --Wtshymanski (talk) 22:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

First I think that we need to realize that these are words in the English language more so than inherently defined topics. And each has lots of different meanings. And also both are so broad and so overlapping with other articles that IMO both should be mostly about the terms. But I do think that they have different meanings with respect to being articles. IMO automation is the overall process of doing something automatically, and automatic control would for example, be the control portion of or control of that automation. Also there are cases where automatic control exists without anything that is commonly called automation. For example, a thermostat controlling the temperature in a house. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Close loop control as simplest automation???

In the third paragraph it is stated that close loop control (comparing difference of signal value and desired value and react accordingly) is the simplest form of automation. This is absolutely not true. A robot putting one piece after the other from place A to place B does not need any signal to do its job. This can be pure open-loop controlled. This needs correction. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.176.16.5 (talk) 17:01, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the main (first) part of your post, the article does not say/claim that. It was describing the "simplest type of an automatic control loop" not claiming that a control loop was the simplest form of automation.North8000 (talk) 21:29, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Automation & Costs

WHOA!!! If this is the third industrial revolution these posters didn't learn much from the first 2. The cost of robotic production does NOT tend towards zero. The cost of implementing a new robotic system requires teams of engineers and maintenance technicians. Indeed, each new actuator or material required to develop a new system puts money in the pockets of manufacturers. An easier way to look at it is to think about the car industry. The car industry is just now approaching 100 years old, and it represents billions in revenue and thousands of jobs. Granted, thousands of Farriers, horse stables, buggy companies, and large parts of the railroad industry suffered as a result of cars, but each "threat" to established industries has only evolved into a new more efficient industry....


Automation does tend production costs downward, where costs are measured in Human Time per unit produced. Automation only reduces costs in the limited scope where it’s applied; and costs only tend asymptotically toward zero.

That cost reduction is often a driving motivation, with owners only engaging teams of engineers to automate when anticipating lower per-unit costs; but such reductions are not globally uniform. Markets remain fractured, for both political & geographic reasons — in spite of dramatic market flattening and price reductions driven by standardized networks shrinking transport costs for both materials & data. ISO containers & ships, TCP/IP & routers notwithstanding, transport is not completely “frictionless”. A cup of coffee can’t be teleported hot from a restaurant in Kona to a bedside in Siberia.LoneStarNot (talk) 13:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Edit on 17:38, 13 February 2021‎ →‎Cognitive automation: Remove old research

While I do think it's important to always keep up-to-date research in wikipedia articles, I think the new article added do not fully cover the information that was in the older Deloitte one. For example:

These are not as specific as the ones mentioned in the article but these are still important cognitive automation areas. But these are not mentioned now. In my opinion atleast a sentence should be added to that section. What do you think? Korvidus (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

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