Information System in the Automated Factory

Surely, one of the features that shall distinguish the future automated factory is the higher level of the information processing & data base management that shall be required to operate it. At one time it appeared reasonable that all of the data and information needed to operate the plan may be contained in one large central data base. Although, the sheer size of the database & the modifying nature of software practices over time is likely to make the single data base impractical.

One of the purposes why the factory data base shall be so large is that it should be capable of handling not only alphanumeric data, but ought to also be able to store, process, & transmit, & display graphical data. The computer systems ought to be capable of supporting engineering design & analysis functions, and the complicated and often time-consuming numeral computations that are linked with those functions, in addition to the traditional data processing applications. This capacity to handle geometric data shall provide the opportunity for direct communication of product specifications among the computer systems of the computer firm & its suppliers.

Information system of the future shall probably have the capacity to interpret data in more than the conventional data processing sense. Rather than merely performing repetitive calculations on the data, the system shall be able to understand the inherent meaning of the data being manipulated. Huge computer systems at the third & fourth levels of the computer hierarchy shall possess attributes of comprehension & intelligence in their processing of information. They shall be able to make decisions & initiate actions in the company for the timely execution of process that should occur during the manufacturing cycles. In essence, the information system utilized to support the automated factory of the future shall become a "knowledge base management system" rather than a data base management system.