the highest employers of labour per acre of land: whilst industry is being zealously banished to the new towns and special industrial areas (althougn In the May June 1956 issue of devices so that when one operation the vacated areas are still liable to "KEYSTONE”, the Journal of the is completed the work-piece is moved be re-occupied by other industrial Association of Building Technicians, automatically into position to the processes), office blocks are to rise in there appears an article on "Automa- next machine. These are the auto- the centre of London to create an tion and City Development" by Mr. matic transfer mechanisms which lie ever-increasing potential employment R. J. Soper, President of the A. B. T., at the root of modern automation. with its problems of staffing, travel which should be read and absorbed
and living accommodation. by all architects, civil engineers and Automation also stores and releases town planners.
the various components to be incor- The impact of automatic business porated in the finished unit to keep and electronic aids on this situation in step with the speed of manufac- is developing into a migration of em- ture of the unit. They are stored, ployment pattern from the centre to sorted and released electronically: the periphery a periphery either automatic assemblies enable the individual parts as far as the outer suburbs.
inspection and rejection sited on the North Circular Road or
determined standard of size, weight, and finished product to satisfy a pre- finish and the like.
AUTOMATION AND CITY DEVELOPMENT
The editor of the Journal, in draw ing attention to this article says:
"It might well be said that so much has been written and spoken on the subject already, that the time has arrived to let it rest for a while to see how automation develops and to let everyone collect their thoughts. But this is not possible. Automation is a challenge; it is a challenge to the Government and to the industri- alists; it is a challenge to the scien- tist and engineer and to the trade unionist; and not least, it is a chal- lenge to the planners and designers in our own industry. Indeed, to the last group it is probably a more ur- gent challenge than to any other sec- tion of the population. An obsolete tape, electronic devices or simple Modern developments in business factory or machine can be scrapped mechanical links. Human supervision accounting machines have cut staffs and replaced almost overnight, but at factory level is therefore reduced. and time spent on accounting, re- cities and towns are planned and However, additional skilled labour is cords and invoicing. New machines built not for a decade or a generation needed to manufacture the special punch the information on tape and but for centuries.
mechanical and electrical equipment so enable a permanent record, at the required, much of which cannot be turn of a switch, to repeat precisely mass produced.
in detail and more accurately than human memory or sight, information from office to office in the same building or 10 or 100 miles away with equal ease and facility.
To meet the special war condi- tions and increasing congestion in London, firms have already decen- Automation is primarily a method tralised their staff and transferred of communication, where operations whole departments to the new towns and standards are pre-determined by or suburbs. An impressive example the skill and long planning of tech- of transference using electronic nologists (as the higher qualified equipment was seen in war time scientists and engineers are called) when a London bank kept its records and technicians, and the information ten miles away and electronically being communicated to the machines and scrutinise the cheque signatures or equipment automatically by such over this distance. means as punched tape, magnetic
"Our town planners are therefore very largely deciding now the pattern of our social and industrial develop- Thus the automatic factories of ment for centuries to come. They the future normally arising out of must weigh the imponderable and the needs of greatly increased pro- anticipate every conceivable demand duction will employ fewer operators
used of the community. Mr. Soper's article per square foot of floor area, more Modern teleprinter services faces one of the most important as- technicians, designers, etc., and will widely in war time and increasingly cut the weight of pects: What effect will automation have a greater intake and output of in peace time have on our city centres? Will it help raw and finished materials than at clerical labour, significantly increase solve the urgent problem of satura present.
greater the speed of decision and enable a tion by speeding and assisting decen- turnover of materials and finished small staff to deal efficiently with tralisation? Will much of our pre-
products it may well be that rail more work. Here again, as in factory sent planning and building in city communications will again become automation, it is an increase in work centres prove out-dated? These are
an important factor, thus reversing capacity rather than economy in la- important questions."
the trend during the war and post- bour which results and which will war years when motor transport has cause an increasing development of proved adequate for all modern in- electronic business equipment and dustrial requirements (except basic communication aids. and heavy industries).
Because of this
As planners and building tech-
Mr. Soper writes, in part:
Automation and electronics are much in the news today. Few trade unions, and none in the engineering
The technical and design staff. nicians, whether architect, engineer industry, can face their current pro- with modern business and visual or surveyor, we must anticipate the blems or look with confidence into methods of communication available, future or stagnate and fail as civilisa- the future without some understand- will not need to be tied to the fac- tions before us have failed. leaving ing of these developments and their tcry sites themselves. Broadly we behind perhaps as the fruits of our effects on the working conditions, pay may expect, but this has still to be 20th Century society but a record of and prospects of their members. proved, that per square foot area of incomparable systems of public ad- factory space the housing require- ministration and law for history to Managements will neglect at their ments for factory operators will be remember. peril the new techniques now avail- reduced, with an increase in techno- able to increase and cheapen produc- logists and technicians (no longer Unless we see that our plans today tion in factories. Automation and tied to the actual factory location) recognise that communications can automatic factories have become un- and with increased service and com- adequately, swiftly and easily bridge wisely perhaps, subjects of specula- munication requirements for the the distances from our homes to of tion in the popular press.
fice and homes to factory, we shall waste our productive efforts in con- Automation has been defined as A silent but perhaps even mcre structing buildings in the centres of the "forms of mechanisation that vital revolution has been taking cur great cities that cannot adequate- involves the linking, co-ordination place in the commercial areas and ly and conveniently be serviced by and control of industrial processes." offices in the cities. Ling and others the personnel who must travel to and Thus lines of machines previously have shown that the proposed office fro under unnecessary difficult con- fed by human means are linked by buildings in the City of London are ditions.
factory and plant.
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