Factors affecting Process Design - Degree of Automation

The degree of automation  to be  adopted and  integrated into the  production  system is a key issue in process design, because of the high  expenses involved in automation and  also the difficulty involved in integrating automation into  existing  operations.

Automation can reduce labour and related costs but the huge investment required for automation cannot be justified by saving in labour cost alone. The key  factors supporting automation are  the  need  to quickly  produce products/ Service  of high  and the ability  to quickly  change production to  other  products/ Service. If the operations strategy calls for high product/service quality, high flexibility and faster production of product/ service automation become an important element of operations strategy.