Foray Pencils

"If they do not have an appreciation of where we come from, I doubt
they have an appreciation of where we should go. "
- Bryce's Law

INTRODUCTION

I always find it funny when I tell a young person in this industry that I
worked with punch cards and plastic templates years. Its kind of
amazed that same look I get from my children when I tell them, we used to
watching television in black and white, with three channels, no remote control,
and approvals station at midnight. It has been my observation that our young
workers lack a sense of history, which is particularly evident in the
global systems. If they do not have an appreciation of where we come from
I doubt they will have an appreciation of where we should go. Consequently,
I have assembled the following chronology of events in the hope it will
an overview on how the industry has evolved to its current systems.

I'm sure I could turn this into a long dissertation, but instead, I'll try
be brief and precise. In addition, the following provisions have little concern
for academic developments, but rather how the systems have been implemented
in practice in the business world.

PRE-1950'S - "Systems and Procedures"

Perhaps the biggest revelation for our young players in this period
is that there was no form of systems prior to the advent of
computer. In fact, "Systems and Procedures" Departments are pre-
computer several years. These services would be affected by the
the company's design using the main measurement process work "and" work
"Simplification techniques such as from industrial engineering. These
processes have been carefully designed using diagrams and charts grid. There
was highly accurate in the design of forms for recording data, filing systems to
manage the paperwork, and the use of summary reports to act as control
points in the systems. For example, spreadsheets have been widely used
for many years before the introduction of Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Excel. It was
also considerable attention given to human behavior in the activity
process (the precursor of "ergonomics").

The systems were originally implemented by paper and pencil, using big books, newspapers
(Logs), indexes and worksheets. We have always had interesting deposit
systems, from maps and files, storage cabinets.

Perhaps the earliest mechanical device was the abacus used for simple past
mathematics (which is still used to this day). The late 1800s saw the advent of cash
registers and adding machines popularized by companies such as NCR
Dayton, Ohio under John Patterson, who also introduced radical changes in
terms of dress and conduct. It was adopted by Thomas Watson, Sr.
having worked for many years at NCR and IBM extended these practices to
and the rest of the world of business. In addition, Burroughs has been a major player in
adding machine industry beginning.

The first typewriters were also introduced in the late 1800s has had a huge
effect on the correspondence and processing orders. This was mainly led by Remington
The weapons (which would later become Remington Rand).

In the early 1900s, the tabulating equipment has been introduced to support such things
Census count. It has been widely adopted by U.S. companies. Occasionally
you have old timers who can not describe how they can program these machines
using plug boards. Punch card sorters were added in addition to tab
equipment.

As a note, most of what IBM Watson has been learned about the business
his day early.