Integration and Automation of Manufacturing Systems

An integrated system requires that there be two or more computers connected to pass information.
A simple example is a robot controller and a programmable logic controller working
together in a single machine. A complex example is an entire manufacturing plant with hundreds
of workstations connected to a central database. The database is used to distribute work instructions,
job routing data and to store quality control test results. In all cases the major issue is connecting
devices for the purposes of transmitting data.