There are claims that full automation is bad because it limits capability and isn’t flexible. However, this lacks context. Automation only limits the equipment if it’s poorly implemented. Properly automated systems are as flexible as manual systems and offer additional safety protection that manual systems can’t.
Automation
- More expensive: higher capital outlay, but the cost of operation is significantly higher on a manual system
- Complex: complex to build, but far less complex to operate compared to a manual system
- Less flexible: only if poorly implemented
- Consistent results
- Safer (Automatic safety functions)
- No operator-introduced errors
Manual
- Less expensive to purchase, more expensive to operate
- Less complex to build, more complex to operate
- More flexibility
- More room for error
- Operators take breaks, get sick, fall asleep…
Ultimately, the benefit of fully automated systems is that you’ll get consistent results. Once you set up the parameters, you will always get the same result, and it can run far longer than a human operator can – robots don’t take breaks! Automation is far more reliable than a human operator. If automation didn’t work, we wouldn’t have cars, nuclear power plants, hospitals, or airplanes.
In addition, automated systems keep detailed records, automatically, which can record any issues experienced, which are immediately flagged for correction. This may not apply to all extraction suppliers though, so be aware! Here at Apeks Supercritical, we have had multiple iterations of the software. In as much as you’d never buy the first iPhone or first mac, you wouldn’t want to go with a system that’s on its first iteration.
Our systems have been tried and tested, innovated upon, tested again…until we’ve perfected the technology.