1. Automation and PLCs

1.1 PLC characterization

Programmable logic controllers (PLCs), often referred to as industrial programmable logic controllers (IPLCs), have been around for 40 years, and have rapidly spread to production, logistics, packaging, building management and other areas. Its development has accompanied that of production automation, taking it from the stage of the automated machine to that of the automated production system (APS), and it has become, along with the robot, a major component, the "foot soldier of industrial automation", to use the expression of C. Laurgeau, one of the authors of the first French book on the subject. It sold millions of copies, and only the PC, born later and with a wider scope of application, did better.

The question of reducing it...