Mechanization or mechanisation (BE) is providing human operators with machinery that assist them with the muscular requirements of work. It can also refer to the use of machines to replace automatic labor or animals. A step beyond mechanization is automation. Even the use of hand powered tools is an example of mechanization as it reduces the work of either screwing, drilling, inserting nails, punching or even power washing a surface.
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The term is most often used in industry. The addition of powered machine tools, such as the steam powered lathe dramatically reduced the amount of time needed to carry out various tasks, and improves productivity. Today very little construction of any sort is carried out with hand tools.
The term is also used in the military to refer to the use of tracked armoured vehicles, particularly armoured personnel carriers, to move troops that would otherwise have marched or ridden trucks into combat. Mechanization dramatically improved the mobility and fighting capability of infantry. In the armed forces of industrialized countries, all infantry is typically mechanized, with the possible exception of airborne forces.
Mechanization may also refer in the broader military sense to "motorization" or the replacement of horses with motor vehicles for all functions, including logistics, artillery tractors, etc.
Similarly refers to the replacement of manual labor and simple hand tools with human, animal, electrical and internal combustion engine powered (driven) machinery. This can be as simple as foot powered open drum threshers to more complex two-wheel tractor to GPS guided combine harverster.
When we compare the efficiency of a labourer, we see that he has an efficiency of about 1%-5,5% (depending on whether he uses arms, or a combination of arms and legs). Internal combustion engines have mostly about an efficiency of 20%.[1] This aldough, some IC engines state efficiencies of <50%. Electrical engines have an efficiency of 90%[2] Hydrogen IC engines have an efficiency of 30%.[3] Hydrogen fuel cell engines have an efficiency of 40-60%.[4]
When we compare the costs of using an internal combustion engine to a worker to perform work, we notice that an engine can perform more work at a comparative cost. 1 liter of fossil fuel burnt with a IC engine equals about 50 hands of workers operating for 24 hours or 275 arms and legs for 24 hours.[5][6]
In addition, the combined work capability of a human is also much lower than that of a machine. A average human can provide work good for around 250Wh/day, while a machine (depending on the type and size) can provide for far greater amounts of work. For example it takes four days of hard labour to deliver only one kWh - which a small engine could deliver in less than one hour while burning less than one litre of petroleum fuel. Combining both the inefficiency as well as the low cumulative work capability, we can see that a boss will pick a machine over a human anytime. This, as in practice it means that a gang of 20 to 40 men will require a financial compensation for their work at least equal to the required expended food calories (which is at least 4 to 20 times higher). In most situation, the worker will also want compensation for the lost time, which is easily 96 times greater per day. Even if we assume a the real wage cost for the human labour to be at US $1.00/day, an energy cost is generated of about $4.00/kWh. 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 luminscent solar concentrators).[7]
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