What is Automation?

Introduction?

The first computer was invented by Charles Babbage (1822) but was not built as per his design until 1991 due to lack of funding.?

Alan Turing invented computer science (1936). He is known as founding father of Artificial Intelligence and of modern cognitive science.?

The ENIAC (1945) was the first electronic general purpose digital computer.?

It was huge in dimension and filled a room. ?

The first PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) began being developed in 1968.

General Motors (GM) designed a specification for a 'Standard Machine Controller' and distributed it to vendors for a quote.

Some of the major elements of the specification included: Should use solid state components which should be modular and expandable.

Allen-Bradley was chosen by GM to design that 'Standard Machine Controller'.

Odo Josef Struger from Allen-Bradley is sometimes known as the "father of the programmable logic controller".

He was involved in the invention of the Allen?Bradley programmable logic controller and is credited with inventing the PLC.

Richard E. Morley (December 1, 1932 – October 17, 2017) was an American mechanical engineer who was considered one of the "fathers" of the programmable logic controller (PLC) since he was involved with the production of the first PLC for General Motors, the Modicon, at Bedford and Associates in 1968.

Digitalization got its start as far back as 1679 when Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed the first-ever binary system.

He then authored a remarkable and well-crafted book known as the Explanation of Binary Systems in 1703 to help other people understand the binary system.

Digitalization essentially began with the advent of computers in the 1950s.

Since then, the non-stop march of Digitalization has transformed nearly everything into computer-friendly 1s and 0s.

Digitalization has changed the way we work, communicate, shop, bank, and even how we relax and entertain ourselves.?

Digitalization is causing a trend of Automation within the world today.?

But what exactly is Automation??

What are the different dimensions of it??

What does it mean to you as an organization??

I am going to take you for a ride to find an answer to all those questions.?

My name is P K Saxena.?

I am the CTO of Sofcon Systems India Pvt. Ltd.?

Sofcon Systems India is an Automation Solution provider company.?

Guide of my ride is Eric Kimberling, who is CEO of Third Stage consulting company, an independent consulting firm that helps clients throughout the world with their digital transformation journeys. ?

Organizations have been talking about Automation for several decades.?

They have been looking at ways to be more efficient, more productive, more profitable and more effective.?

Will you not agree with me??

That Automation word is being used in a very broad sense.?

What exactly does Automation mean in today’s time frame??

I want to throw some light during this joy ride. ?

History of Automation

Let us first look at history and also look at how Automation has evolved in recent years.?

Also look at how digital technologies have evolved in recent years.?

We travel many decades back to the era when computers were first being adopted by organizations.?

The main focus of organization was on very simple data collection and data capture.?

They used to gather data electronically and bring it to central location for further processing.?

This data had been previously stored on paper or on spreadsheets.?

In the 1970s and the 1980s, organizations were starting to capture data within computer systems for the first time.?

They wanted to get centralized visibility of their operations and also to see their financial results. ?

Now let us do fast forward to the 2020s.?

Automation and digital technologies are certainly doing what they have been doing always, which is visualizing operations and financial results in central location.?

But now they are also adding other layers of benefits such as streamlining workflows and making sure that business processes are as efficient as possible.?

They are also focused on providing more insights into what is happening within the organization.?

So in other words, rather than just providing top line numbers, Automation is also providing deeper insights into what exactly is happening and what is driving the financial results of different organizations throughout the world.?

We are seeing that in some cases low skill high volume types of business processes are being completely automated nowadays.?

Automation over the years has really evolved from just simply providing digitization of data to now providing more efficiency, more top line revenue results, more insights and deeper understanding of business operations. ?

Software Automation

The core and fundamental foundation of Automation is Software Automation.?

This is a continuation of a trend that started decades ago which is the computerization of back office processes.?

Things like ERP systems that capture data related to financial information or inventory levels or stock locations in a warehouse but in addition to just capturing data, Software Automation is also making workflows easier so it is tying together end-to-end business processes across an entire operation in an industry.?

This is really one of the big benefits of Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP systems or Customer Relationship Management / Sales Systems or Supply Chain tools.?

All these sorts of technologies are meant to tie together business processes across different functions and disciplines within an organization.?

There are other technologies and other forms of Automation that can take your organization even further ahead.?

Robotics and Sensors

Another technology and form of Automation that is really evolving in the last several years is the concept of Robotics and Sensors.?

Probably the easiest way to think about Robotics and Sensors is to think about a manufacturing shop floor.?

Many of business processes and production processes have been automated by robots that are physically moving products around and assembling those products.?

You also have robots in warehouses that are moving inventory from location to location or moving it to the staging area to be shipped to customers.?

These are examples of how Robotics is being used throughout many organizations.?

It is not just the robots that are being automated, it is the data that those robots are capturing such as data about inventory locations, about work in progress status, quality issues, productivity metrics, all these sorts of information are being captured within robotics and that data is then being pushed back to computer systems or the Software Automation that I discussed about in the previous segment.?

So when we think about Automation, it is not just the core back office software that is being automated, you also have physical automation using physical robots and all the sensors that go along with that. ?

Robotic Process Automation

Now bringing together Software Automation and Robotics, you have a third type of Automation which is Robotic Process Automation.?

Despite the name Robotic, there is not a physical Robot involved in Robotic Process Automation but it is a function within a software system that acts like a Robot.?

It is some kind of Software that does the work automatically what a human might have historically done.?

For example if you have any sort of transaction that does not require a lot of skill, does not require a lot of human intelligence to do but it is a high volume type of activity that can become very efficient as an organization grows, Robotic Process Automation can be a way to automate those processes.?

A good example of Robotic Process Automation would be purchase order processing.?

So when you go to procure any sort of product or service you typically issue a purchase order.?

You receive delivery of what is being purchased and then you ultimately issue payment.?

Now what happens is when you have that purchase order, then eventually you are going to get invoiced by the supplier.?

You need to double check and do a match to make sure that you have a purchase order that reflects what is being invoiced and that you have actually received delivery of what you are being invoiced for.?

That is considered the three-way match and so Robotic Process Automation can automate that and actually do that for you and kick out the exceptions.?

So humans are not having to process every single purchase order and invoice that goes to that purchase order.?

Robotic Process Automation is doing that for them but in cases where there is a problem or an exception or the RPA technology senses that there might be an anomaly, it will kick that out to humans so that the humans can focus on the exceptions rather than transacting all the manual processes that go along with that.?

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AI, Machine Learning and Intelligent Automation

Another type of Automation that takes RPA technology one step further is going to be technologies like AI, Machine Learning and Intelligent Automation.?

So these are technologies that not only automate business processes and do the business processes for you but they are actually looking to the future and trying to predict and learn from data.?

Learn the patterns and start to understand what is happening within an operation or a business process.?

I do not want to get too much in depth and also distinguish between these three things- AI, Machine Learning and Intelligent Automation but what I will say is that AI is a form of Intelligent Automation and Machine Learning is a type of technology that supports AI.?

So Machine Learning is at the core fundamental route of really looking at data and learning what is happening with the data and it is not really programmed necessarily to do things in advance.?

The Machine Learning is just learning what the patterns are and starting to anticipate what will happen with future data sets.?

Artificial Intelligence is really the way that you end up using that Machine Learning to apply algorithms to predict future decision making.?

So these are all the Automation technologies, I have described them here and out of all the different Automation technologies, last one is the most advanced one and this is where the world is headed.?

Well most organizations have some level of Software Automation.?

While many of them are now evolving and are building on their capabilities to get to Robotic Process Automation.?

And few others are progressing towards adopting AI, Machine Learning and Intelligent Automation.?

So this is the full bucket of Automation dimension or layer of Automation that is important for you to understand as you look at your digital strategy for the future. ??

Impacts to Humans

We get many questions for all the different types of Automation:?

What does this mean to us as humans??

What does this mean to potential displacement of jobs??

Will we have jobs in the future with all these types of Automation happening??

And to be fair, these are few questions which have been lingering in our society for decades.?

Now ever since the introduction of computers in the early stages of Robotics, people have wondered whether new technology will displace humans to the point that we are no better off than we were before the technology.

?This is a question I do not have a very good answer however when ?I look at history and also look at how technology has evolved and changed and affected people's jobs, then I can comment that technology and automation in general is absolutely going to disrupt our lives.?

It is going to change our lives.

?What we find through history is that these types of technology and automation are really creating opportunities for people not to do more mundane tasks but it is allowing them to do more strategic tasks and to do things that are more enjoyable and require a more advanced skill set.?

It offers a great opportunity for people to learn, develop and make life better.?

The key here is how we help people through that transition.?

This transition will not happen naturally.?

So the key to understanding automation is also understanding what the impact is to your organization and to humans and understanding how you are going to help your humans and your employees through that entire transformation.?

I hope this article has provided you some understanding of what Automation is and how it will impact your organization.?

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?Resource: Eric Kimberling-What is Automation? / Third Stage Consulting Group ????www.thirdstage-consulting.com??