I have discussed the fundamental concept of automation.
Software automates human effort to varying degrees. In doing so, software emerges that performs this automation to an increasing extent. In this post I'll describe the basic stages through which automation progresses. In later posts I'll give specific examples.
Automation depth
Automation depth can be understood in terms of the extent to which human effort, observation, knowledge and control is replaced by the computer system.
Stages: help a human do something; do something a human would otherwise have to have done; make a decision a human would have made; gather information about all the work that is arriving, in process and completed; make work and resource allocation decisions. There are a few different ways automation depth can be understood. Here are a couple of them:
- Stages: As depth increases, the human does things faster and has less work to do.
- Automation depth is correlated with moving from an “open loop” system to a “closed loop” system.
- Effort. In the earlier stages the computer augments or replaces the person’s efforts. This is like power steering in a car, in which everything is the same except turning the wheel takes less effort.
- Knowledge. As automation depth increases, less knowledge is in the heads of people and more in the computer.
- Control. As automation depth increases, the human loses control and eventually becomes controlled by the computer.
Automation depth has these basic levels:
Recorder |
The software essentially tracks what people do and records the results of what they create or decide. The most primitive software of this class does this for a single job task. More advanced software does it for multiple tasks, eventually for a person’s whole job. |
Power tool |
The software takes high-level instructions from the operator, and does most of the work. In less skilled environments, the power tool will often select and order the work to be done. |
Robot |
Like an auto-pilot, the software replaces the human for most functions, performing those functions better than a human could, leaving the humans only to set goals and processing rules, and handle exceptions. |
Unlike some of the software evolution progressions I've described, iIt is not generally a quick win to get to the next level of automation depth. An industry can stay stuck at a level of automation depth for decades. Normally, the people directly involved with an application strongly resist moving to the next level of automation depth, because they see it as deeply threatening to their autonomy, power or skills.
If a company tries to go to the next level, it is essential that it understand its position, and have the backing to last out the transition and the flexibility to keep trying until it establishes a beach-head from which it can expand. The benefits have got to be dramatic and tangible. Feel-good stuff tends not to work here. Some people are going to get bent out of shape, and managers of managers have got to impose the solution. The only way that typically happens is if things are arranged for their risk of failure to be low and the rewards great, and indisputable when they actually happen.
I will give examples of this progressions in future posts.
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