English 'automation' was coined in 1946 at Ford Motor Company from 'automatic' + '-ation,' tracing back to Greek 'automatos' (acting of itself) — a word Homer used for the self-opening gates of Olympus, making modern factory automation a descendant of divine self-moving machinery.
The use of largely automatic equipment in a system of manufacturing or other production processes; the technique of making a process operate automatically.
Coined c. 1948 by D.S. Harder, a Ford Motor Company vice-president, to describe the company's new automatic transfer machines. Formed from 'automatic' + the Latin suffix '-ation.' 'Automatic' derives from Greek 'automatos' (αὐτόματος, acting of itself, self-moving), from 'auto-' (αὐτός, self) + 'matos,' a root related to 'menos' (μένος, mind
Homer used 'automatos' in the Iliad to describe the gates of Olympus opening 'of themselves' and Hephaestus's self-moving golden tripods. The ancient Greek concept of things that act on their own — divine machinery — is the exact concept that D.S. Harder revived in 1946 for Ford's assembly lines