It is quite common for manufacturers to use computer programs to control their processes. Car manufactures for example, use computers and robots to make a lot of the materials they need or to assemble parts. This can save money as you do not have to pay a human to do the job, cuts out on human error and also can help in situations which could be potentially dangerous for a person to do.

Although using computers to control machines has a huge number of advantages it also comes with a number of disadvantages. If a human was carrying out a job then they would be able to notice if something didn’t sound right or look right but most machines are not able to do this so processes may continue when something has already gone wrong which requires fixing. That can end up costing a lot of money in wasted materials and time.

It is important that the computers which run the programs are kept up to date and are also checked on a regular basis. It is quite common to have faults in computers and glitches in software. This can often easily be fixed but it is important to have a back up plan should the system have to go offline for a period of time.