Chapter 34 Automation in Manufacturing
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temple doors and singing mechanical birds. His work was applied to many
mechanical toys, music boxes, and musical clocks developed in Europe during
the eighteenth century. These devices had mechanisms that used disks. The
disks had ridges or holes that encoded a program (detailed operating instruc-
tions) that guided the apparatus. The program code held on the disk caused the
item to chime or move according to a set plan.
The idea of programmed cards or disks was adapted in 1804 by the French
loom maker, J. M. Jacquard. His looms used a series of punched cards to pro-
gram the machine to automatically produce a set pattern in fabrics and carpets.
In 1822, Babbage proposed building a machine called the Difference Engine to
automatically calculate mathematical tables. The Difference Engine was only
partially completed when Babbage conceived the idea of another, more sophis-
ticated machine called an Analytical
Engine.
Later, Herman Hollerith applied
this principle to an automatic data-recording and accounting machine using
punched cards. This invention was first used for the 1890 United States census.
It reduced the time needed to tabulate the results of the census by 50%. His
punched cards became the forerunner of the computer card, which was used to
enter data in early computers.
In the twentieth century, the idea of a punched-tape program was tried on
manufacturing machines. These machines, called numerical control (NC) machines,
became the backbone for the second industrial revolution—the automation age.
The arrival of modern factory automation came with the recent develop-
ment of the computer. This useful machine is the dominant feature of the com-
puter revolution, which impacts our lives every day. Its advent brought us out
of the automation age and moved us into the information age. See Figure 34-3.
Computers
Control Machines Process Data
Figure 34-3. Computers can be used to control machines and processes. They can also process written, graphic,
and numerical data.