Islands of automation
Encyclopedia
Islands of automation was a popular term used largely during the 1980s to describe how rapidly developing automation
systems were at first unable to communicate easily with each other. Industrial communication protocols, network technologies, and system integration helped to improve this situation. Just a few of the many examples of helping technologies are Modbus
, Fieldbus
, Ethernet
, etc.
The term is now more appropriate to information technology
, where Enterprise application integration
looks to solve the problem of islands of automation in the IT field, where the spaghetti network failed.
Davenport (1998) argued that islands of automation create indirect costs for firms with fragmented systems.That is, "if a company's system is fragmented, its business is fragmented". What is more, islands of automation leads to a decrease of productivity, efficiency and customer responsiveness. ERP systems provide solution to this problem.
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...
systems were at first unable to communicate easily with each other. Industrial communication protocols, network technologies, and system integration helped to improve this situation. Just a few of the many examples of helping technologies are Modbus
Modbus
Modbus is a serial communications protocol published by Modicon in 1979 for use with its programmable logic controllers . Simple and robust, it has since become one of the de facto standard communications protocols in the industry, and it is now amongst the most commonly available means of...
, Fieldbus
Fieldbus
Fieldbus is the name of a family of industrial computer network protocols used for real-time distributed control, now standardized as IEC 61158....
, Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
, etc.
The term is now more appropriate to information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, where Enterprise application integration
Enterprise application integration
Enterprise Application Integration is defined as the use of software and computer systems architectural principles to integrate a set of enterprise computer applications.- Overview :...
looks to solve the problem of islands of automation in the IT field, where the spaghetti network failed.
Davenport (1998) argued that islands of automation create indirect costs for firms with fragmented systems.That is, "if a company's system is fragmented, its business is fragmented". What is more, islands of automation leads to a decrease of productivity, efficiency and customer responsiveness. ERP systems provide solution to this problem.