What is Industrial Automation?

Industrial automation is the use of control systems, such as computers or robots, and information technologies for handling different processes and machineries in an industry to replace a human being. It is the second step beyond mechanization in the scope of industrialization.

The word ‘Automation’ is derived from ancient Greek words of Auto (means self) Matos (means moving). Thus, a mechanism move by itself or self dictated is called automation. As compared with manual systems, automation systems provides superior performance in terms of precision, power and speed of operation.

Industrial automation is the use of control devices such as PC/PLCs/PACs etc. to control industrial processes and machinery by replacing as much as possible labour intervention and dangerous assembly operations with automated ones.

In industrial control a wide number of process variables such as temperature, flow, pressure, distance, and liquid levels can be sensed simultaneously. All these variables are acquired, processed and controlled by complex microprocessor systems or PC based data processing controllers.