Exploring levels of automation related to SMEs

Abstract: This project explores about different aspects of level of automation from a theoretical point of view and reflecting upon them by validating the ideas through benchmarking some of the SMEs in Småland region. This report includes a detailed description of SME’s and its importance, which is then narrowed down to the challenges they face due to technological advancements and changing market. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the level of automation, the SME’s in Småland region have adopted currently. This pre-study is carried out to gather information on a variety of products manufactured and the production system strategy in practice currently and carry out a pilot study to provide a systematic approach towards changing the level of automation. In order to differentiate the SME’s in Småland region according to their automation level, concepts like automation pyramid and level of automation taxonomies are used. LOA taxonomies are used to divide the various operations and tasks between humans and the automated systems. Whereas the automation pyramid is used to categorize the SME’s to their respective automation level. A contrast analysis is carried out to illustrate the automation levels in different companies based on the findings. Finally, the report is concluded considering the levels of automation the selected companies represent from the study and the overall automation level is proposed. Further recommendations are provided for industrial standardization with respect to automation.