The Importance of Automation in Manufacturing and Production
Automation has certainly being the buzz word of the current century, with many businesses looking to automate various parts of their operations. Nowhere else is this more evident than in the manufacturing and production industry, with many parts of the supply chain being automated by machines. Why is this so? What is the importance of automation to the industry?
In this article we cover why manufacturing and production business owners are increasingly turning to automation in order to boost their work.
What is Automation
Automation can be defined as the creation and subsequent application of technology to monitor or control the production of components, finished goods and services. This would include the usage of smart machinery at any step of the production line. The key here being the ability to reduce the need for human effort and intervention during the process.
Automation Increases the Efficiency of Your Production Line
Think about the part of your production line that requires the most labour. With labour comes factors such as salary, fatigue and relatively inconsistent performance. By contrast, if you were to use smart machines to automate this part of the supply chain, you would be getting higher and more consistent rate of production.
As companies become ever more competitive with productivity, the gains from increasing the returns on the toughest production stage could give your company the competitive edge it needs.
Automation Reduces the Number of Mistakes Made
When it comes to manufacturing, precision and consistent quality are two of the hardest factors to account for. For example, you may have a liquid dispensing operation that helps to fill up plastic bottles with soft drinks. If you were to rely on purely labour, each person would need to take careful measurements and spend time filling up each bottle without risk of excess spilling.
Given the difficulties of the challenge, you can surely expect to find wastage of drinks, and inconsistent volumes filled form bottle to bottle. Automating this process would reduce the sheer tedious cost of the operation while ensuring that highly precise amounts of soft drink are dispersed into each bottle.
Furthermore, with the use of sensors and smart technology, you can be assured that the challenge of filling up a bottle precisely will be of no challenge.
Automation Allows You to Spot Defects with Ease
Another benefit that automation affords your business is in defect detection. Business owners have traditionally spent large sums of defect detection as a means of safeguarding consumers, their product quality and their brand. One defect with negative consequences could lead to the fall of a brand as consumers quickly lose trust in it.
Yet, detecting and rectifying these defects is easier said than done. When your production line is producing components at a high rate, you would require a big labour force to check through each product or even to sample them.
As such, we recommend using automation in this area to scan for defects and alert operators to potential products to be checked.
Incorporating Automation Into Your Production Line
An example of automation is automatic weighing and filling machines. These machines allow you to fill out different containers with liquids by measuring their weight. Once the appropriate weight has been reached, the machine will turn off dispensing and move the next container into position to be filled up.
