The term “automation” pertains to the advanced stage of industrialization whereby machines operate autonomously from humans in performing the necessary tasks of industrial production; often these tasks are ones that are repetitive, involved with heavy lifting and are dangerous to humans. These machines, or robots if you prefer, typically are much more efficient than humans and have become a critical part of certain industrial operations, especially ones that strive to maintain strict quality control standards that require a very low number of manufacturing defects per set number of units made.
Since the start of civilization, humankind learned to use tools and eventually machines to maximize their ability to make something useful. Over time, these technologies became more and more sophisticated, and since the Industrial Revolution, starting in England in the 1800’s, until the end of World War II in 1945, there was an explosion of many new and revolutionary machines that made industrial production more efficient and requiring fewer workers per item produced.
The specific genesis of automated robotics goes back to the 1950’s in America, when two men, George Devo (inventor) and Joseph Engelberger (engineer), inspired by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, endeavored to create the first successful and functional robot, which was named Unimate. This robot was a crudely programmable machine with clasping “hands” extending and rotating from a turret-like device. It started a successful career working at a GM automotive plant in 1962, with the job of taking die castings from the manufacturing line and welding them into the car frame – a dangerous job gladly relinquished to the robot.
Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, many of the robotic breakthroughs were made at universities with strong high-tech achievements like MIT and Stanford. Each progressive step these universities made was mostly about: the increasing functionality of the robotic arm, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and the increasing use of sensors to allow the machine a better level of functional awareness of their surroundings. These progressive developments, in conjunction with the improvements in Japan1, laid the groundwork for a rapid expansion in the 1980’s and ‘90s in the use of robots in industrial applications, especially related to the automobile industry.
While automated machines have a long history of controversy regarding their perceived negative impact on human employment, the historical evidence is not altogether conclusive. Yes, whiles some jobs have been lost to industrial robots, other jobs have been created related to the management of the robots, as well as other higher skilled jobs in the fields of engineering and IT, which have blossomed as a result of increased automation. Robots have contributed a lot to offer for industrial production and assisting humans with the less desirable tasks, in the future they will also need to be more cost effective and more technological capable to avoid the plateau effect.
1 In typical fashion, Japan took a good idea from somewhere else and developed it into something better. While the U.S. was the beginning place for industrial robots at General Motors, the ongoing use of robots in the U.S. industry was mostly stifled by trade unions afraid of a large number of their workers losing their jobs. In Japan, where the government took an active role in securing a worker’s employment for life and was also experiencing a shortage of workers, decided to push the utilization of robots in their industry to become the undisputed leader in robotics.