Over the course of the entire history of humankind two revolutionary adaptations has shaped the history of mankind more than any other phenomena or factor. The first being the agricultural revolution which enabled us to produce food on a mass scale and in turn led to the formation of closed knit communities and other entities such as kingdoms, republics and empires. The second adaptation was the Industrial revolution which culminated in the formation of the modern industrial world characterized by mass production of goods and products with the help of complex machines, mass consumption by the masses, a globalized interconnected and interdependent economy. In other words, the world we live in today is a direct precursor of the industrial revolution. Now, we are at the brink of the third major revolution that mankind is going to witness. It has been dubbed as the IT revolution thanks to the rapid development in latest Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Technology. Industrial automation is the next step in the evolution of mechanization. With the rapid improvement in AI applications and robotics, automation has reached its tipping point to drive forward the next revolution of information and technology.

In simple terms, industrial automation is the use of control systems such as robots and computer applications for handling different processes and machinery in industry with virtually no, or bare minimum human interference. Today robots have

the ability to perform seemingly complex human tasks to the extent of even outperforming us. Major companies and industries, have started to realize the potential advantages of automation and are increasingly making their operations automated. In fact by the year 2040, automated machines are expected to replace more than half of the workforce globally. Multiple industries, from manufacturing to banking, are adopting automation to drive productivity, safety, profitability, and quality.

New Innovations in the Automation Industry
Over the past couple of decades, automation industry has witnessed new innovations which have given automation industry new surges of growth. For instance, real time systems will give way to complex adaptive and multi-processing systems. The future belongs to nanotechnology, and everything will become wireless. Major new software applications will be in wireless setup and distributed peer-to-peer networks. Fully automated factories have started to crop up since the last decade onwards: customers order online, with electronic transactions that negotiate batch size, price, size and colour; intelligent robots and sophisticated machines smoothly and rapidly fabricate a variety of customized products on demand. Remote controlled robots are making its headway in manufacturing units and maintenance applications. A large production factory set-up although still prevalent, but it is steadily becoming a thing of the past. The factory of the future will occupy less space and be movable where resources and customers are located. Efficient communication support by robots is now possible, for instance, many of the food delivery apps have incorporated chat bots to sort out customer queries and complaint. Industrial automation in the form of robotics encompasses a wide range of sectors from automobile industry to pharmaceutical, cosmetic and even food and beverage industry. Multinational automation business such as Mitsubishi, Fanuc, Siemens and ABB are providing automated solutions to companies with minimum set-up costs and intervention. These trends are going to continue as the cost of robots is expected to come down by 65 percent by the year 2025. Automation will usher in a new era of connectivity and reliability in a hyper competitive environment. The future of automation looks very promising with increased reliability and access.

• By 2025, for example, it’s projected that 10-15% of jobs in three sectors (manufacturing, transportation and storage, and wholesale and retail trade) will have high potential for automation.

• By 2035, the range of jobs with high automation potential will be closer to 35-50% for those sectors.

• AI alone is expected to have an economic impact of $15.7 trillion by 2030.