The future of automation

Even if economic advantages of new developments in robot technology are not quite evident further development in robotic technology means a permanent powerful innovative force in production engineering. The framework of technology push and application pull can create a control loop of rapid prototyping and in case of success sophisticated yet reliable standard components. But research in manufacturing automation tends to overestimate the significance of flexibility in automation. It has to be mentioned, that here are a lot of production domains devoted to economy of scale. The modification of production systems for the heavier implementation of automated operating devices under the incorporation of new work oriented models will be one of the main challenges in the near future. Group-oriented models for the work shop level can be the seeds of the organisation of future fabric structures. The first succesful attempts of German automobile producers and the intentions of introducing this o rganizational form in the next years on a broader scale are going in the right direction.