  The Observatorio Astrof\'isico de Javalambre (OAJ{\dag}1) in Spain is a young
astronomical facility, conceived and developed from the beginning as a fully
automated observatory with the main goal of optimizing the processes in the
scientific and general operation of the Observatory. The OAJ has been
particularly conceived for carrying out large sky surveys with two
unprecedented telescopes of unusually large fields of view (FoV): the JST/T250,
a 2.55m telescope of 3deg field of view, and the JAST/T80, an 83cm telescope of
2deg field of view. The most immediate objective of the two telescopes for the
next years is carrying out two unique photometric surveys of several thousands
square degrees, J-PAS{\dag}2 and J-PLUS{\dag}3, each of them with a wide range
of scientific applications, like e.g. large structure cosmology and Dark
Energy, galaxy evolution, supernovae, Milky Way structure, exoplanets, among
many others. To do that, JST and JAST are equipped with panoramic cameras under
development within the J-PAS collaboration, JPCam and T80Cam respectively,
which make use of large format (~ 10k x 10k) CCDs covering the entire focal
plane. This paper describes in detail, from operations point of view, a
comparison between the detailed cost of the global automation of the
Observatory and the standard automation cost for astronomical facilities, in
reference to the total investment and highlighting all benefits obtained from
this approach and difficulties encountered. The paper also describes the
engineering development of the overall facilities and infrastructures for the
fully automated observatory and a global overview of current status,
pinpointing lessons learned in order to boost observatory operations
performance, achieving scientific targets, maintaining quality requirements,
but also minimizing operation cost and human resources.
