Mechanization

In modern usage, such as in engineering or economics, mechanization implies machinery more complex than hand tools and would not include simple devices such as an ungeared horse or donkey mill.

After electrification, when most small machinery was no longer hand powered, mechanization was synonymous with motorized machines.

[2] Extension of mechanization of the production process is termed as automation and it is controlled by a closed loop system in which feedback is provided by the sensors.

[4] By the 13th century, water wheels powered sawmills[5] and trip hammers, to pull cloth and pound flax and later cotton rags into pulp for making paper.

French mathematician and engineer Desargues designed and constructed the first mill with epicycloidal teeth ca.

John Smeaton introduced metal gears and axles to water wheels in the mid to last half of the 18th century.

Demand for metal parts used in textile machinery led to the invention of many machine tools in the late 1700s until the mid-1800s.

After the early decades of the 19th century, iron increasingly replaced wood in gearing and shafts in textile machinery.

In the mid to late 19th century, hydraulic and pneumatic devices were able to power various mechanical actions, such as positioning tools or work pieces.

In food processing, pneumatic or hydraulic devices could start and stop filling of cans or bottles on a conveyor.

By the early 20th century machines developed the ability to perform more complex operations that had previously been done by skilled craftsmen.

[11] After 1900 factories were electrified, and electric motors and controls were used to perform more complicated mechanical operations.

Prime movers are devices that convert thermal, potential or kinetic energy into mechanical work.

Inside factories, warehouses, lumber yards and other manufacturing and distribution operations, material handling equipment replaced manual carrying or hand trucks and carts.

Electrification allowed individual machines to each be powered by a separate motor in what is called unit drive.

Despite this being a low wage for hard labour, even in some of the countries with the lowest wages, it represents an energy cost that is significantly more expensive than even exotic power sources such as solar photovoltaic panels (and thus even more expensive when compared to wind energy harvesters or luminescent solar concentrators).

[20] Many[quantify] students refer to this series as indicating basic-to-advanced forms of mechanical society.