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Apple recently released iPhone7. Have you noticed that since introducing the iPad back in April 2010, Apple has launched six more generations of the tablet. In fact, many companies have the capacity to launch new generation of products in a few months. The use of automated assembly systems, or programmable automation is the technology that has made shorter product life cycle possible.

The surprising fact is that, according to a recent annual Capital Equipment Spending Survey, the percent of plants utilizing programmable automated assembly systems has decreased from 39% in 2002 to 27% of over the years in 2014, while the percent of plants operating traditional fixed automation assembly systems has been hold steady. Of course, the programmable assembly is still more popular than fixed systems in automation industry. The real reason for this is not because flexible automation systems have been used less and less over time, instead the standard for fixed automation vs. flexible automation systems have evolved over time. Many tasks, that have been performed by flexible automation systems in the past, are now performed by what we call fixed automation systems. There is no doubt that technology is advancing automation at a substantial pace than ever before, one where perhaps the key differences between fixed and flexible machines become indistinguishable.

It is reasonable to expect that the product life cycles (the time-span between market introduction and model replacement/removal) will be becoming even shorter and shorter in many years to come. We are probability not able to predict whether industries will utilize many flexible automation systems, or fixed automation systems in the future., but we’re sure that manufacturers will deliver better products faster at a lower cost in the future because of the advance of flexible automation systems.