1. Industrial systems automation: objectives and features

The automation of production systems has been one of the responses to the changing industrial context and to competitiveness. This automation had a dual objective: to increase the productivity of the technical system (cost reduction, reliability, availability, quality) and to improve the direct safety of operators, given that most of them are far from (and protected from) the place where the product is processed.

The gradual takeover by automation and computer systems of certain operations involved in manufacturing processes has led to a number of characteristics of these new systems:

• Increasing complexity of industrial systems

  Complexity is one of the consequences of the automation and computerization of industrial production and/or operating systems. This complexity is not only due to the...