Page 16 - EngineerIt May 2021

AUTOMATION AND CONTROL

The role of automation and the

growing application in the cloud

Clinton Scott, managing director at TechSoft International *

Collaborative automation is said to be the practice of using
AI on machines to replace humans. But is this true, and
what are the real benefits?

ollaboration has been a means to primarily define the process by which
humans interact with tools, most commonly software, to communicate with
Ceach other. But in the era of intelligent manufacturing and smart factories,
collaborative automation has led to the rise of collaborative tools or robots. In
fact, collaborative robots or “cobots” are now relying on AI and machine learning
algorithms to not only work smarter but work better with their robot and human
counterparts in the same workspace.
But AI needs to be taught and told what to do, which is still very much the
role of the underlying systems applying the AI models to the physical practice.
Conversely, these models are built by humans and taught by them, and they all
rely on data. Without data, there is no AI, and there is no intelligence, just actions.
The future of collaborative automation is not just in creating better algorithms
to help cobots become more self-sufficient, but also in ensuring that they Clinton Scott
seamlessly integrate into the shop floor with their human colleagues. By this we
mean from the point of view of safety, production and functional aspects. Acceleration towards cloud-based
The golden thread here is not just the collaboration that AI fosters but also automation
the information it can serve. By collating and extracting the data from devices in There is an acceleration towards cloud-based
a smart factory, a business can improve the collaborative models and use these automation but what does that mean to industry on
insights to perform better production forecasting, identify human labour shortages, the continent and how can it best be embraced?
and spot inefficiencies. But this requires a connected intelligence platform, similar With the proliferation of cloud providers, we
to that supplied by TIBCO, that can help a business connect humans and robots, are starting to see virtual data centres pop up
unify the processes in between, and then predict sustainable outcomes all based throughout Africa. While the hyperscalers such
on data. as AWS, Microsoft and Google are still limited to
main economic hubs (like South Africa), several
What does automation mean for smart manufacturing in Africa? private cloud providers offer cloud real estate,
This move to automation is an important one because it translates into improved with specific growth in Kenya and Nigeria.
efficiencies and revenue gains for a business. And it also creates better visibility Cloud-based automation is fantastic on
of operations. You can’t capture data from humans working in your environment, paper, but it can be costly if you don’t deploy your
but you can from the systems they are operating. We need to break the perception applications in a way that avoids vendor lock-
that automation is there to replace people. in, supports all your edge cases, and complies
In fact, while we have an unemployment crisis in Africa, Europe is facing a with requirements or regulations. The best way
manufacturing labour shortage. Automation will never replace all the people, but it to achieve it is to select solutions with a vendor-
will help automate some of the skills intensive processes – and while we have an agnostic integration mesh and follow an API-first
unemployment crisis, like Europe, we also have a skills shortage. approach to integrating core on-premises systems.
But automation needs systems, and many African businesses are cash The best cloud for manufacturers with legacy-
strapped at a time of contracted manufacturing demand because of the pandemic. heavy backends is a hybrid architecture. The
A common trend to navigate this challenge is system integration and cloud usage key to using the cloud in automation efforts is to
with API integration. Remember, using digital technologies to produce traditional increase agility, reduce time to market, improve
goods comes with the cost of IT infrastructure, skills, management practices, resilience, and enable the business to act on
regulatory frameworks for the data ecosystem, and intellectual property rights. data-driven decisions. The cloud also lowers the
So while automation and digital connectedness is ramping up in Africa, it only manufacturing carbon footprint and reduces TCO
applies to sectors where there is already use of robots or IoT devices. Labour while freeing up precious resources. n
intensive businesses are merely conducting process automation – and full
automation is still a way off. *cscott@tech-soft.co.za

EngineerIT | May 2021 | 14