Automation replacing people

J

Johan Bengtsson

Depending on your definition about online editing

There is probably not many systems really allow you to change whatever you want online immediately just the part you change. However the fact that you have to put together your changes and upload those can be taken care of behind the scenes and go very fast. That means you have
to define a maximum time for the change to take effect. With faster computers and lower compile time - yes it could be made online editable in that way to - depending on how long time you would accept. Would 1 second be too long? 10 seconds? 0.1 seconds?

(It does of course depend on the size of the part needing a recompile too)

/Johan Bengtsson

----------------------------------------
P&L, Innovation in training
Box 252, S-281 23 H{ssleholm SWEDEN
Tel: +46 451 49 460, Fax: +46 451 89 833
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet: http://www.pol.se/
----------------------------------------
 
J

Joe Jansen/ENGR/HQ/KEMET/US

Actually, many PLC's do offer the ability to change online immediately. You edit the program in memory, and when you hit the 'test' button, it
switches to the new code between scans (less than 1mSec).

PC's 'should' be able to do this. I mean, look at the difference in clock speeds, memory capacities, etc. Everything from a hardware standpoint is stacked ludicrously in the favor of the Intel based PC.

I am sure cww can tell everyone why, then, it is so difficult to get a PC to perform as quickly and reliably as a simple MicroLogix or something from Automation Direct.....

--Joe Jansen
 
C
Hi Joe

> Actually, many PLC's do offer the ability to change online immediately.
> You edit the program in memory, and when you hit the 'test' button, it
> switches to the new code between scans (less than 1mSec).
>
> PC's 'should' be able to do this. I mean, look at the difference in clock
> speeds, memory capacities, etc. Everything from a hardware standpoint is
> stacked ludicrously in the favor of the Intel based PC.
>
> I am sure cww can tell everyone why, then, it is so difficult to get a PC
> to perform as quickly and reliably as a simple MicroLogix or something from
> Automation Direct.....

You've been using the wrong OS. There's probably more code invoked in running a mouse across a few objects than there is in the whole PLC
executive. If you ported the same code to the PC architecture it would run insanely fast. I can easily toggle an output at 3.5 Mhz on Linux
with a character based display running, probably even faster if I had PCI IO handy. Start a GUI and you won't get half that and things become
erratic from scheduling events. You can get stuff like SoftPLC to be both fast and consistant because they don't run a whole OS as we know it.
QNX will run stuff fast and predictably also because it's designed as an RTOS.

Since it is inherent in Linux to stack and switch between many processes many times per second, it follows that it should be possible to stack a
process at a defined point and switch to the new process stacked at that same point in the same amount of time as a normal context switch. This
would no longer be Linux behavior and would be some really serious kernel hacking. Another, more attractive approach would be to put a conditional
fork/exec in the running program that forks and execs the new program on demand, say at the start of the scan. After the fork, the processes share
the same file descriptors, special memory map, etc. I'm not sure about IPC's and the like but it's reasonable to assume we could handle these.
On execing the new program, it overlays the old and there are provisions to share the file descriptors or not which we would want to do in this case. It would start at the top of the scan and then loop as normal. The other details would have to be dealt with, but this would be the *NIX
way to do it. By having a similar conditional in the new program you could fork and exec the old one if desired for your fall back. So you see, without thinking very hard, I can come up with very plausible ways to accomplish this. I can say with reasonable assurance that we can do it. At that point, I stop worrying about it. Linux has the stuff to do it. As of the last time I checked, it wasn't a priority, but that doesn't
mean we can't or won't do it. We are simply doing other things right now. It's really safe to assume we can do anything a PLC can do if there
is sufficient reason. It's all just software.

Regards

cww

 
M

Michael Griffin

At 00:14 02/08/01 +1000, Jiri Baum wrote:
<clip>
>The idea was that the new version gets prepared in the background and
>loaded into memory (but not started) while the old version is still
>running. At that point, both versions are in memory, and you can flip
>between them on a scan-by-scan basis.
<clip>
>(Obviously, it'd be useful to have a full revision control system, so you
>can back out of a series of changes, or back out of them a week and three
>unrelated changes later, but that's a separate issue: it should be flexible
>and work within minutes - the above is simple and needs to work instantly.)
<clip>

I used to like the AB PLC5 which had nice features like easy on-line editing, test/untest of edited rungs, an AFI (disable rung) instruction, force tables, etc. That is, I liked it until I had to deal with programs which half a dozen other hackers had played with and had left all these features active in a running program. Before I could do anything myself, I had to clean up someone else's half finished mess.

I've come to the opinion now that I would rather have a PLC without all those features. I don't like on-line editing, I don't like AFI
instructions, and I don't like force tables. The reason why I used to like them was that they made bad programming practices easy. I would like to
think that I've learned something since then. Now I would rather give a problem some serious thought, edit off line, down load a complete modified program block (or set of blocks), and if it doesn't work, then down load the original one again while I think about what went wrong.


**********************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
**********************

 
(cleaning out my inbox)

Michael (almost a month ago):
> I used to like the AB PLC5 which had nice features like easy on-line
> editing, test/untest of edited rungs, an AFI (disable rung) instruction,
> force tables, etc. That is, I liked it until I had to deal with programs
> which half a dozen other hackers had played with and had left all these
> features active in a running program. Before I could do anything myself,
> I had to clean up someone else's half finished mess.

Sounds like you need a ``commit as is'' function that would clean out all those things automatically... Since *any* editing session involving these features would have to end in cleaning up after yourself, such a function
would be generally useful, not just in that particular situation.

(Ideally, it would generate a report of what it cleaned out.)

> Now I would rather give a problem some serious thought, edit off line,
> down load a complete modified program block (or set of blocks), and if it
> doesn't work, then down load the original one again while I think about
> what went wrong.

I'm still in favour of having an immediate-backout facility... one level only. That way you can quickly switch back to something that works. You still have to give the problem the serious thought, edit off-line and download the complete modified program block (or set of blocks); just that if it seriously doesn't work, there's a better chance of recovering.

That's if you have to work on a live system. If you don't, there's no point to this feature.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]>
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jiribvisit the MAT LinuxPLC project at http://mat.sf.net
 
S

Scott Cornwall

The Fisher & Paykel PSC state based PLC does this.
In one model two complete programs can be resident in memory and swapped between while running, in a newer model only changes in the program are downloaded and swapped into the controller and the programmer can immediately swap back to the previous program (again while running of course).
The programming environment also provides revision management allowing old versions to be selected and downloaded if desired, plus an undo/redo system of unlimited history that works across programming sessions - e.g. wind back
to how the program was yesterday.

It would be very useful if that all finds its way into the LPLC eventually.

Scott Cornwall
_________________
www.sentech.co.nz
 
> Since it is inherent in Linux to stack and switch between many processes
> many times per second, it follows that it should be possible to stack a
> process at a defined point and switch to the new process stacked at that
> same point in the same amount of time as a normal context switch. This
> would no longer be Linux behavior and would be some really serious kernel
> hacking.

Actually, not necessarily. If you wanted to do it absolutely generally then yes, you may have to do that (or maybe not); but we mostly don't need that.

> As of the last time I checked, it wasn't a priority, but that doesn't
> mean we can't or won't do it. We are simply doing other things right now.

In some ways, a lot of the basic pieces that would be needed for module exchange are already there. The synch library can be used to ensure that the old and new versions can't both run (and to make the other one sleep). Mostly it's just a question of someone sitting down, designing the protocol and thinking through all the consequences to make sure it all works right.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]>
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jiribvisit the MAT LinuxPLC project at http://mat.sf.net

 
Scott :
> The programming environment also provides revision management allowing
> old versions to be selected and downloaded if desired, plus an undo/redo
> system of unlimited history that works across programming sessions - e.g.
> wind back to how the program was yesterday.

> It would be very useful if that all finds its way into the LPLC
> eventually.

Well, considering that the LinuxPLC itself is developed using such a system, there's a good chance it will :)

(Yes, there have been cases where I went "give me the LinuxPLC as it was yesterday" - when I downloaded a new version and found that it doesn't
work... Send an e-mail to the person responsible for that section, meanwhile carry on using yesterday's version.)

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]>
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jiribvisit the MAT LinuxPLC project at http://mat.sf.net
 
C

Christopher Blaszczykowski

Automation/Controls DO NOT cause release of laborers. Problem lay on lack of knowledge of upper management up to the highest level in management, especially CEO's. The second level of ignorance is build up of Integrators, who in many cases rip of companies due to the same problem.

In both cases the same people make idiotic decisions, without ever entering production facilities, and without any knowledge of production/manufacturing requirements. As well there is foreign for them safety issues and quality of product.

They think similar way as people at the beginning of Industrial Revolution. Then due to activity of owners people destroyed machinery in believe that would solve the problems with lay-offs.

Today the very similar problems occur. Instead of retraining people across factory they try to "reduce cost" (so they call it. But according to normal economics there shall be ratio of four people which bring (produce) money for the company to 1 overhead person. As well there shall be limitation how much money shall make CEO and others according to total cost of production, to prevent overprizing. For those who are familiar with economics it is clear, but not for those who have only MBA. By the way I call them Masters of Business Assasins.

Lets look at the prices. At the beginning of 80's the cost of Wonderbread was 26 cents for loaf. Today the size of it is only about 50% and the prize (if I rememer correctly) $2.59. If someone look at the technological process it can be easily found that it didn't change to much. Production improve due to automation, but the technological process is the same almost for centrys. so what is the reason for so drasticqal cost increase? Quantity increase as well - but how much in reality this bread cost? Is this associated with automation, or it is something else? Lets make an assumption - how much influence would have on price hiring 1000 laborer in relation to one CEO? I will leave analysis to those who are interested, but remember to count materials, tools and labor in such analysis. According to my counting price increase depend only on salary increase of those in upper management, who by the way destroying companies across US.
Lets look into another example:
CEO decided that due to decreast cost everybody will have to use fax paper on both sides! What a great idea?! But... due to lack of knowledge, he dont know that the pigment use to print faxes will clog a fax machine. In this case fax machines have to be repaired at least once a day. Lets summarize: fax machine cost around $350, repair per month around $6500 (those are real costs which I pesonally experienced!). After 6 months fax machine have to replaced - another $350. Can someone tell me where is the savings.

All of this what I described look like not associated with the major subjes, but it actually is. Same values apply to automation.

Aditional thing - please show me how many times did any of you observe reduction in administration, and how many time you experience reduction of laborers and engineering employment?

Returning to automation and integrators.
During many years of my work I was laid off many times, not because I wasn't able to perform, but due to bankruptcy (or something similar). I meet only one VP who knows how to... He also met difficulties and was looking for job for over one year. He was creator of very dynamic engineering group well known in US and overseas.
Another case VP of Engineering - who don't know a didly thing. Even our technical secretary coment his ability to manage. Thosa are types of menagement which I call "from social advancement".
He was the one who hire integrator (before I come to company) and cause rip of by this integrator. Number one it was wrong choice of equipment for application, second cost of controls system excede $860,000, when should not excede max $150,000 even with the garden and fountain with color light and fireworks in the middle. I push for training for people and for hiring enginners for each plant - not result. Documentation for each of the lins - NON EXISTING, Ladder logic not described, HMI - custom made for job security. AND ALL OF IT WAS APPROVED BY VP OF ENGINEERING WHO CLAIM THAT EVERYTHING IS IN PROPER ORDER. I ended with recovering wire by wire schematics!
Another examle - After three week of instaloing and debubing new installed equipment, and as well training new hired employee I found that the new employee was fired, because he was to fat. To clarified - this particular employee done exceptional job after the training and without any supervision. I was highly surprized how good job he did regardless of fact that he received limited training due to time constrains. I would definitely keep this employee on board permanently.

I always work with the people on production as a mains sources for spotting problems and apply corrections to controls. They are very interested in learning something new and apply their new knowledge to production, unfortunately in majority of the case they are treated badly by upper management.

Is the automation bad for the people - my answer is NO. Does automation casuse unemployment - NO. The problem is that we do have to many uneducated ignorants in upper management interested only in filling their own pocket, and until it changes it always would be bad. Working in Germany I observe that in all their companies about employment and salaries for upper management decide not CEO but join meeting of management and union. Maybe this would be solution for meny of our problems, but Union would have to change attitude as well.


 
R
I have been there before. You have to think about 2 things. Number One, in the long term, as your customer's competitors install their machines, would your customer be able to compete? and keep the employees it has now?

Number two, By displacing these employees they put themselves back into the job training grinder where if they follow some wisdom they aquire new skills for the supervisory level job that did remain or maybe even replace you later on. They do have the experience you needed them for to get the machine going. You did a good thing for America, long term.
 
These are all excuses. In real life there is no such thing as retraining, because you are 45+ by that time and no company wants you even with your existing skill. Forget about getting hired with new skills and no experience at that stage.
Secondly at that age how much you can concentrate on learning? can you compete with youngsters?
In fact it is a human rights issue. This is a true story of my father. Afterwards he never had peace in the rest of his life.
Typically, human being digging their own graves.
Only way out is genetic medicines that can make your brain at par with the efficiency of a twenty two years old fresh graduate.
 
> The biggest problem is that as people get older they believe that their job will last forever. This is not true, regardless of automation, downsizing. The company does not owe you or me a job. We are paid for the time we are there.

People on the lines have choose not to learn anymore after high school. They spend their time fishing on the weekends, watching the football games. I love to do this stuff also, but I only fish one or two times a year. I only watch football if all of my projects are on time and I can afford to take a break.

I read over 150 Engineering books a year front to back. As a EE, I taught myself advanced chemistry and I keep all my skills sharp.

I'm 40 years old, and about every 2-3 years I look for a new job and find one because I have not fallen behind.

Those people on the line have fallen behind or they would be up for that supervisory position.

These are all excuses. In real life there is no such thing as retraining, because you are 45+ by that time and no company wants you even with your existing skill. Forget about getting hired with new skills and no experience at that stage.

> Secondly at that age how much you can concentrate on learning? can you compete with youngsters?
> In fact it is a human rights issue. This is a true story of my father. Afterwards he never had peace in the rest of his life.
> Typically, human being digging their own graves.
> Only way out is genetic medicines that can make your brain at par with the efficiency of a twenty two years old fresh graduate.
 
D
First of all, I'm sorry for my broken English (it's not may mother tongue).

Sinclair raised a very interesting issue about the society in wich we live in nowadays: the nature of "work". We, who work with automation, are at the center of this issue.

In fact, "automation replacing people" is a necessary consequence of the kind of society we live in. In a capitalistic society the pressure of competition forces businesses to increase productivity, through new technologies and/or rationalization. But on the other hand, capitalism needs work; after all, who would buy the commodities if nobody worked to produce them for a salary? In short, capitalism has a contradiction in itself: it needs work, and it destroys it. The necessary result is a collapse, and we are approaching it right now.

It was possible to cope with this contradiction until now for a simple reason: market expansions created more new jobs than technology/rationalization destroyed. In other words, the job destructions were compensated by the increase in absolute production. But the rise of microeletronics and automation killed this trade-off. The speed of job-killing is much faster than that of job-creation, no "market expansion" coul afford it. We are arriving now at a historical moment in which work is turning obsolete. When we can produce things without human activity (with automation!), we can *free* from work.

Unfortunetely, we live in a fetishistic society, in which work, instead of being a means to an end (the satisfaction of material necessities) is an end in itself. Only this can explain that an increasing number of people are starving for the only reason that their "work" is superfluous. Only this can explain that automation, which should be a source of wealth and thriving, turns out to be a source of "unemployment" (the irrationality of this concept is the measure of the irrationality of the society in which we live in).

The subject is very interesting... for people who would like to read more about it, I leave a few references:

"Manifesto against labour", Gruppe Krisis
[ http://www.giga.or.at/others/krisis/manifesto-against-labour.html ]
A very interesting analisys of the "society of work", by the German group Krisis.

"The happy unemployed"
[ http://www.diegluecklichenarbeitslosen.de/dieseite/seite/engl.htm ]
Another German group which criticizes "work" as the center of sociabilization

"In praise of idleness", Bertrand Russel
[ http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html ]
In this 1932 text, Bertrand Russell says that technology makes possible a 4-hour-day (*before* microeletronics and automation!)

"The righ to be lazy", Paul Lafargue
[ http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/works/lazy/ ]
A very interesting text in which Karl Marx's gendre attacks the "disastruous dogma" of work"


Best regards,
Daniel Cunha






> [Originally posted 1/29/1998] Recently I designed a machine which automated a process in a food
factory. The installation was commissioned on the line with the manual workers standing by.
On completion of the commissioning the manual workers were 'released' (sacked). One gleaming new machine, five less people! I found this a strange situation as those workers had helped me in the early stages of machine development and now they were no longer needed. I was interested in how members of the list rationalised these situations.

marc sinclair
 
M

Mark L. Goldstein

I look at it this way, if I can help make a company profitable in the United States even if it means reducing some operating staff it is better than them moving the whole operation to China or India. If they move the entire operation off-shore than there aren't any jobs for anyone.
 
C
Often thought about this but, it hasn't happened to me. The companies I've worked for are mostly short of people, the work tedious and the pay nothing to get excited about. But it has crossed my mind. I'm not sure what you could do about it, asking beforehand would be embarrasing for the customer and probably be considered out of line. It's a paradox because the most effective automation will often be that which displaces the most workers. My test equipment most often simply speeds things up rather than replacing hand testing, but the potential is there. And once you're comitted, I doubt that one can back out for social reasons. At best you might get a sniff of this up front, and there are some machines that would obviously tend to replace people. I guess if I felt bad about the intended project, I would no-bid. I could rationalize it
with the "someone will do it" argument, but if I were knowingly putting people out of work, I might regret it. It would help if the jobs were dangerous or nasty for people to do. It's actually the customer who is doing the dirty work, but.............
In good times they would move people around, in bad times, out the door. So it's not in your direct control. A very troubling question in all. It's like weapons work.

Regards

cww
 
Depends on the situation. Some jobs are simply not sustainable due to improvements in technologies. Ice delivery people and typesetters for printing come to mind. I had a job in a factory when I was younger where I pushed a button to start the machine once parts were loaded. Another where I fed bolts down a feeder where the vibator did not work properly (my wages cost less than the repairs cost). That company no longer exists and it is probably good that it doesn't. Not eliminating these obsolete jobs will only hasten the elimination of the company that fails to act thereby resulting in the elimination of all jobs. This process certainly is tragic and painful for those
involved (it has happened to me before so I know). But in the long run, everyone is better off for it, including the people that can peform more useful work. I, for one, am a heck of a lot happier doing something useful now.
 
B
On April 28, 2004, Curt Wuollet wrote:
> Often thought about this but, it hasn't happened to me. The companies
> I've worked for are mostly short of people, the work tedious and the
> pay nothing to get excited about. But it has crossed my mind. I'm not
> sure what you could do about it, asking beforehand would be embarrasing
> for the customer and probably be considered out of line. It's a paradox
> because the most effective automation will often be that which displaces
> the most workers. My test equipment most often simply speeds things up
> rather than replacing hand testing, but the potential is there. And once
> you're comitted, I doubt that one can back out for social reasons.
> At best you might get a sniff of this up front, and there are some
> machines that would obviously tend to replace people. I guess if I felt
> bad about the intended project, I would no-bid. I could rationalize it
> with the "someone will do it" argument, but if I were knowingly putting
> people out of work, I might regret it. It would help if the jobs were
> dangerous or nasty for people to do. It's actually the customer who is
> doing the dirty work, but.............
> In good times they would move people around, in bad times,
> out the door.
> So it's not in your direct control. <

Fact is no one has any control over the massive increases in productivity we have expereinced in the last few decades, and its unlikely to change much. If companies do not upgrade and improve their productivity they will be gone soon, thats a much worse situation than having to shed some jobs along the way (although not much comfort to those whose job was shed).

> A very troubling question in all. It's like weapons work. <

Whats troubling about weapons work? As long as you are not making weapons for islamic terorists or other evil doers, you are actually doing something necessary and proper, and there is nothing that should trouble you about it at all. can you imagine the world today if US weapons designers had not won the tech war with the Soviets?
 
C

Chris Jennings

Let's not bring politics into this. Ethics are a very individual thing, if someone has a problem ethically with something they have a right to act upon it. Your view of islamic terrorists as being evil doers will be different to someone elses. Therefore what you find acceptable ethically would be totally unacceptable by many other people.

Now back to the original point. As a lover of science fiction I have always believed that automation and control systems are moving the human race further into a world where tedium, danger and mind numbing work are being removed. In the ultimate future, if costs of manufacture go down, eventually it will be so cheap to produce things that people will not need to do as much work to survive. In this utopia people will simply live and be able to live in the way they want, not constrained by the artificial needs of money and the consumer society.

Chris Jennings
 
M

marc sinclair

When I see opinions like this I could weep. Using our skill and ingenuity to make machines that kill and maim others is wrong. As technologists we have enough of a job to sustain life and health on this planet, I choose to use my talents in this direction.
If you want peace then don't prepare for war.


--
Marc Sinclair
http://www.germainesystems.co.uk
 
D

Dobrowolski, Jacek

In my opinion the Soviets lost because political and economical reasons. In the tech war, as you call it, it's hard to tell who was better. And thanks god (any one you believe in) nobody tried to find it out.

Regards,

Jacek Dobrowolski
 
Top