There is something mesmeric about watching lines of industrial robots swinging this way and that as they make things. But to some it’s a sinister sight, seeing the work of thousands of people performed by machines that never need a tea break or crave a fortnight’s holiday in the sun.
Automation was a natural progression from the application of science to manufacturing. The first major company to embrace automation was one synonymous with mass production: Ford. By 1946, a significant part of Henry Ford’s Detroit production was undertaken by automata, with engine blocks being made by machines that could automatically adjust themselves to the task in hand.
As electronic computers became more powerful in the early 1950s, so-called numerical control methods started to emerge allowing machines to be programmed to deal with a range of tasks, rather than just one. The first robot which had mechanical arms was devised in 1956. Increased automation led to an interest in the idea of putting the whole process of manufacturing under computer control. The first to succeed was a British company which specialized in the manufacture of cigarette-making equipment.
Automation has since spread far beyond the factory floor, from “hole in the wall” bank machines to the microwave cooker. Much has been made of the impact of automation on jobs, and the failure to plough the resulting increased profits and tax revenues into retraining. But it is also true that the growth of automation has relieved many people of hard, boring and dangerous work.
