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Machines Throught the Age

Mechanization, or the use of machines to do the work of animals or people, has been with us for centuries. There are six basic kinds of mechanization. Classification depends on whether machines, or combinations of animals and people, are responsible for the three fundamental elements that occur in every type of activity - power, action and control.

The first kind of mechanization is introduced by typing. In typing words, a body produced "the power" to drive a machine, bat the machine produces "action"; control is with the body. In one of the early mechanized devices, the horse and cart, an animal is responsible for power, while a person controls the mechanism, but the element responsible for action - the cart's wheels and axles are mechanical. The horse and cart is a simple example of a mechanism that saves the human body from doing something.

In the second kind of mechanization, hardware is responsible for both power and action. In a car, for example, the wheels, gears and so on provide action while the engine supplies power. Wind- and watermills are another kind of mechanized device. Like cars, they use unanimated power source (air or water). But these power sources are not within a person's control.

The next 2 types of mechanized devices are all partly automatic. They are mechanically controlled; a person does not have to be present to supervise them. Simple automatic devices are not new. Soon after the first machine-tools appeared late in the 18th century, engineers modified them so that they could work by themselves for some of the time. An operator would set his machine so that it cut a piece of metal automatically. He would not have to do anything while the operation took place. The control devices here were camshafts and stops.

The fifth example of mechanization is semi-automatic equipment. Here people are required for only some elements of control. In this category are assembly lines with the conveyer systems of the 19th and 20th centuries with which, for instance, Henry Ford's first factories assembled cars. In this system parts move from one part of the factory to another on an automatic conveyer. But people have to be present. They stand next to the lines to fit things onto the parts as they move past.

Finally, the sixth kind of mechanization is truly automatic devices, such as transfer lines, computer controlled machine-tools, robots. So to get a strict definition of automation, we can say: automation is mechanization and automatic control.

Automation of production processes

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New words and word combinations:

1) system approach – системный подход; 2) feedback – обратная связь; 3) programmability – программируемость; 4) to intervene – вмешиваться;    5) application – применение; 6) to count – считать; 7) to carry – нести; 8) to cut – резать; 9) to clamp – закреплять; 10) routine – (зд.) режим работы;     11) a set of – ряд, комплект; 12) to turn out – (зд.) точить, обтачивать;   13) sensors – датчики; 14) flexible – гибкий; 15) to be on the way – быть на подходе; 16) machinery – машины, оборудование.

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Automation

Automation is the third phase in the development of technology that began with the industrialization of the 18th century. First came mechanization which created the factory system and separated labour and management in production. Mechanization was a technology based on forms and applications of power Mass production came next. It was a technology based on principles of production and organization. Automation is a technology based on communication, computation and control. The truly automated devices must possess one or more of the following elements: system approach programmability, feedback. With a system approach, factories which make things by passing them through successive stages of manufacturing without people intervening to transfer lines, which made their debut in car factories before the Second World War, are considered automated systems. These carry components past lines of machine-tools which each cuts them automatically. People are not required; the machines clamp the parts out of themselves without a workman being present. Thus transfer lines are different from assembly lines where people are different from assembly lines where people are very much in evidence. With programmability, a system can do more than one kind of job. An industrial robot is an automated machine. It works automatically and an operator can reprogram the computer that controls it to make the machine do different things. Finally, feedback makes an automatic device vary its routine according to changes that take place around it. An automatic machine-tool with feedback would have sensors that detect, for example, if the metal is cutting wrongly shaped, the sensor instructs the machine to vary its routine accordingly. Other examples of devices with feedback are robots with "vision" or other sensors that can "see" or "feel" what they are doing. Most examples of automation in factories today are not "programmable; neither do they work with feedback. They are simply sets of machine-tools linked together according to "systems” approach. These mechanisms are inflexible. They turn out only one kind of part, which is all very well if the manufacturer wants to make thousands of identical components. But if he wants to change his routine, the machinery is not very useful. This is the case while automation is inflexible, flexible automation is on the way. Here, automated machinery has programmability and feedback and can turn out different kinds of components. The equipment will make a tremendous difference to factory floors throughout the world. Flexible automation adds ud to a new industrial era.

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