Experiences of Automation Applications

The paper presents personal experiences from the development and application of automation solutions, mainly in industrial environments, on six different decades spanning from late 1960’s to early 2010’s and relates them to their historical context. During the covered period tremendous developments occurred in both methodologies and enabling technologies. During and after the Second World War, significant achievements related to automation theories were developed and presented by e.g. Bellman, Wiener and Pontryagin. Also the enormous development of the information technology started after the war. During the described period, the automation field changed from pneumatic based single loop solution to fully digitalised automation with software as a main enabler. In many cases, is the solutions are globally distributed. In addition to a description of concrete solutions in a chronologic order, their impacts are presented. The paper is concluded by a presentation of lessons learned also giving some thoughts of interesting research and development issues.