Page 20 - Remembering ISTEL

Remembering ISTEL

The objective was to improve efficiency by a few percentage points, which
would show a handsome payback on the investment in the system.

The system was implemented in October 1978 after a development programme
of two years. Press data is fed automatically to the computers from strain
gauges built into the presses These ensure that the computer is informed, when
the press is active, whether there is metal or not in the die when the press

cycles. The computers can, therefore, constantly monitor production activity,
press by press Foremen and other supervision in the Plant can input

transactions into the system through television like terminals with typewriter
keyboards. They can request information on the status of production or service
through their TV terminals; such enquiries can be made by various levels of
production management in the Plant.

Certain productivity agreements that apply to the shop . floor direct workers
are programmed into the computers, as are parameters that result in prompts

to progressively higher levels of supervision as a problem on a particular set of
presses remains uncorrected. There is a carefully designed security system to

ensure only authorised staff have access to the various classes of data in the
system. Communication on the shop floor between foremen and maintenance
tradesmen is instant via a foreman's terminal located at the head of his press
lines and a printer in the maintenance trades compound.

Clearly, the basic problems which the line monitoring system was designed to
reduce, exist in many plants which have a multitude of machines and associate

services with the consequent communication, monitoring and control
problems. We in Systems believe that similar systems to that implemented at

Swindon will be introduced in many of these plants in BL over the next few years.

Timesharing in BL

Many of the steps Systems are taking are designed to put users more closely in
contact with the facilities available from computers A typical example of this is
the encouragement of users to use time-sharing computer services In this case,

a user has a television-like terminal or a teleprinter-type device and a normal
voice telephone line through which he connects to a large central computer for
the time he needs to get access to the timesharing service.

Systems have built up a considerable base of competence and expertise in
timesharing services to help users exploit time-sharing for a very wide range of

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