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Automation and production management in flour mills

12 September 20135 min reading
Being able to exist in the industrial sectors that transformed into an open market by globalizing and where a cruel competition environment is formed, getting a large share from the profit bring the obligation of making mass production with low cost and high standards. Thus, the flour producers that want to get a share from the world flour trade need fast, standard and low-cost productions. The most basic way of meeting these needs is using automation systems undoubtedly. Being after the new inventions all the time since their existence and working in order to take a step forward in any period, humans started to seek the ways of obtaining large profit margins by spending small budgets and doing a lot of work with less effort after a certain point. Automation represents the entire inventions developed by human being who is approaching the target step by step together with the rapid development of technology and science. The definition of automation is described as performing the works in the industrial sector, scientific researches and management field by machines without human effort or sharing of a work between human and machine. Share per cent of the total work determines the level of automation. That is why the automations system where human power is dense are called as semi-automation and the ones where machine power is dense are called as full automation. Contrary to the beginning of industrial revolution; producing is not sufficient alone in the near past. Especially in the globalizing trade environment where the competition is intensified as a result of globalization; fast, standard, safe and efficient production emerges as an important element. In terms of that view, automation has many benefits for the businesses. These advantages can be listed as low-cost work force, fast production, faultless and qualified production with the same standards. However there are also some disadvantages brought by automation. For example narrowing of the course of employment and emerge of the unemployment gap as a result of transferring the works of people to the machines. Besides, the high costs of the first installation are considered as a disadvantage. However; the high cost of the first installation can amortize itself in the long run in most of the automation systems. Despite these disadvantages; being able to exist in the industrial sectors that transformed into an open market by globalizing and where a cruel competition environment is formed, getting a large share from the profit bring the obligation of making mass production with low cost and high standards as we mentioned above. The most basic way of providing these obligations is using automation systems undoubtedly. Especially in today’s world; factories are demanded to produce more products in a shorter period with the least product costs. For achieving that; the human factor in the production should be decreased and the breakdown and accident conditions should be minimized. Automation systems gained a great importance and value at this point. After switching to automation in a factory that is in any sector; the factory can be monitored from a single center and the desired points can be controlled. Analogue values such as heat, pressure, pH level can be monitored simultaneously and also be viewed graphically. The production process can be monitored and controlled on computers or internet from any desired point in the world with various software systems. Factory automation has a wide range and processes different from each other. Thus the factory automation should be designed within the desired process and in accordance with the flow of the factory. The beginning in the factory automation is defining the desired process and the scenario clearly at first. After that, it is determined that what kind of devices are needed and which techniques should be used. Automation has many sub-segments in itself. These are generally gathered under the topics like building automation, process automation. Although process automation and machine automation show similarities in many aspects, they are totally different. They have common materials and programs but their algorithm and targets are different. Process automation monitors and controls the production in the production process but this not the only target. It shows similarities with machine automation until this point. When the obtained data during production are recorded and be accessible backward and the aimed statistical data are obtained from these data; process automation will have reached its purpose. AUTOMATION IN FLOUR INDUSTRY The obligations about production above are applied also in flour sector when it is especially it is considered that flour is one of the most important foodstuff subjected to the world trade. Thus, the flour producers that want to get a share from the world flour trade need fast, standard and low-cost production. In order to switch to the automation system successfully, the flour mill managers should determine their expectation and target well and cooperate with a good partner accordingly. Because, success on automation system projects depend on a good and experienced team work firstly as well as on other projects. We wanted to learn other subjects that everyone is curious about on automation processes from the expert technology producers of milling machine sector. İmaş Makine Sanayi A.Ş. Executive Vice President Mustafa ÖZDEMİR and Alapala Makina A.Ş. Executive Board Member Görkem Alapala answered our questions about automation and production management.
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