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.