Society has changed considerably in the last hundred years. In fact, we take sometimes take for granted the way in which we live; how products are readily available due to mass production with the ability to ship anywhere in the world. No longer are we constrained by vast distances, with most nations eager to participate in trade with the international community.

Automated manufacturing is a hot topic lately, and it’s a trend that is likely to continue. The benefits of this technology are marked: lower costs, higher efficiency and greater productivity, but with any new technology, they come with some marked risks. One major issue is cybersecurity, with competitors, governments, and rogue hackers all posing potential threats to networked infrastructure.

For those who’ve ever wondered why certain fruits and vegetables are so expensively priced at their local grocery store, the reason is a relatively simple one. More often than not, prices are high because there is a significant cost associated with getting it from the farm to the store. This distinction is generally found in produce that is cultivated by hand – the high cost of using human pickers are passed along first to the grocery store and then to the consumer.

Since the steam engine kicked off the industrial revolution, the manufacturing sector has pretty much followed the same fundamental rules governing the mass production of goods.To be fair, the sector is poised to see some tremendous advancements and efficiencies through the use of PLC programmers and automated robotic workforces but now, thanks to the rapidly