Abstract: economic development in the modern world is increasingly dependent on the development and timely implementation of technological innovations in business processes. One of these is the automation of production. Automation of production provides many advantages, which is indirectly proved by the inevitable increase in the level of automation in economically developed countries. However, for the transition from mechanized to automated production in modern Russia, there are many obstacles, ignoring or not knowing which can lead to significant losses for enterprises. This article is intended to fill this gap, as well as to offer possible solutions and the necessary prerequisites for their application. Such issues as technical problems of automation, economic feasibility of introduction of automatic machines in production, definition of boundary conditions for profitability of automated production will be considered, and also the forecast of development of automation for the near future is made. The emphasis is on technological and economic issues of production automation, as they are the most likely to be adjusted by the company’s management independently. Issues of technological unemployment, as well as social obstacles were not considered, as they can not be corrected at the micro-level of control (by the company’s management). After analyzing the available data, the conclusion is made that automation is hopeless for a significant part of Russian enterprises.
Keywords: automation, automated production management systems (APMS); product life cycle (PLC); changes of demand