Technische und wirtschaftliche Aspekte der Automatisierung. Arbeitswissenschaftliche Aspekte der Automatisierung (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 96) (German Edition)

The task of automatization as that of a subgroup of the system of com- plete rationalization can best be expressed by the demand to increase the quantity and the quality of products and services of all kinds, and at the same time to lower the necessary expenditure of time and costs. In addition the fixed capital investment share of the per-single-production-unit cost has to be kept as low as possible and an reduction in the number of the necessary operating personnel for any particular production process is to aimed at. The dose inter-connection of technical and economic factors makes it necessary to assess and evaluate the existing technical facts and develop- ments from the point of view of their economic result. The concept of the term 'unemployment' stood at the outset of the development of the entire production technique wh ich was so decisively in- fluenced by Taylor's work and ideas. Owing to the fact that with an in- creasing degree of automatic control the cost for a given plant are progres- sively increasing, the capital expenditure is only economically to be sus- tained if the capacity of the plant involved can be fully exploited through a corresponding number of units produced. Here, of course, market-technical considerations play an important part.