II Read and translate the text Forms of Automation. Make up the plan in form of questions, render the text. Forms of Automation

Outside the automobile and aircraft industries, automation of another sort also began to emerge in the early twentieth century. Engineers in the chemical industries, where it was common to employ complex, continuously operating processes, developed a form of automation beginning in the 1930s. There large-scale reactions were monitored and controlled from centralized control rooms. Sensors and actuators, often in the form of pneumatically operated devices, connected the control room to the plant itself.

Despite great differences between the chemical and metalworking industries, engineers by the 1940s also described this as part of the same general automation movement. Similarly, the growing size and complexity of electric power plants in the post-1945 period stimulated experiments with centralized control of the boilers, steam turbines, generators, and switch gear associated with the stations. Relying on pneumatic or electrical controls, the power industry thus also developed a distinctive variety of automation.

With the advent of nuclear power in the 1950s, the design of this type of centralized automation reached a high state. The control room of a nuclear plant, filled with switches and dials, became an easily recognized symbol of the industry by the 1970s, when many such plants were in operation. There were also nonindustrial applications of automation. A prime example is the sorting of mail, which was done almost entirely by hand until the 1950s. The Post Office sponsored a far-reaching program to automate sorting processes, installing its first semiautomatic mail sorter in Baltimore in 1956. By 1965, the Post Office had installed its first optical character recognition device, which allowed a machine to sort some letters according to their city, state, and ZIP code.

III Communicative skills

Read and translate the following dialogs.

1. Company background.

A: How long has the company been in business?

B: For even forty years. The original company – Davies Engineering – was founded in 1978 by the Davies brothers in a small workshop near Manchester. They closed down the workshop in 1980 and opened up a new factory in Leeds.

A: When did it become IABS?

B: In 1997 – when it was bought by a German company. They set up two more businesses in the UK.

A: What does IABS stand for?

B: International Air Braking Systems.

To set up – засновувати

Workshop – майстерня

2. Training

A: What do you do?

B: I am an apprentice with a local engineering firm. My training lasts for two years. Two days a week I study Engineering at a local college. If I pass all my exams, I hope the company will take me on as an engineer.

Apprentice – стажер

To take on – прийняти

3. Job responsibilities

A: What does your job involve?

B: I’m a Project Manager so I have to make sure our projects run smoothly. I work with three Project Engineers. They take care of after-sales service and look after the maintenance side of the business.

4. Team-working

A: Tell me about how you work here.

B: We work in teams. There are about four to six people in each team. I’m training to be a team leader. Each team member is responsible for the quality of the goods we produce. We are multi-skilled so we can rotate jobs. I like that. It stops the work getting boring.

Rotate – змінювати

5. Being in charge.

A: I’m a foreman in our assembly shop. I’m in charge of about twenty-five assembly workers. I have to work very closely with our inspectors. It’s their job to check the quality of the work.

B: Who do you report to?

A: I report to the Shift Supervisor, and he reports to the Factory Manager.

Foreman – старший робочий