MACHINE WITH BRAINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1922, Page 11

MACHINE WITH BRAINS.

TIME AND LABOUR SAVING. RAILWAY ACCOUNTS SIMPLIFIED. "It is positively uncanny the way they work," said a gentleman, in speaking of the set of tabulating, calculating, and enumerating machines vrnlch have just been installed at Railway House, Wellington, the headquarters of the Dominion railways. These arc the first machines of the kind to he used in Australasia, ami they arc also being used in the Government Statistician's oflice in collating vital statistics concerning the Dominion. The set at Railway House comprises ten punching machines, two sortprs. and two tabulators, and by the courtesy of the chief accountant a Wellington "Times" reporter saw them in operation. Similar machines hare been in use on American and English railways fur some time past, the Great Northern using the system very extensively in the enormous traffic they handle.

The cost, of the set runs into five figures sterling, and will occupy a staff of ten operators, hut they have done away with the performance of an enormous amount of clerical work, with a great saving in stationery, and a consequent reduction in staff at all the iarger stations.

The administration of the New Zealand railways, small as thpy are compared with Home. American, and other countries' lines, involves an enormous amount of clerical wor'sr. The Dominion's railway transactions for the year are shown under six heading's for soods and one for pa=s(*n_er traffic, this heing about the limit of analyses under the old clerical way: but with these mechanical brain workers the most complicated accounts are made easy, and any statistics desired can be extracted almost a_ pasily as putting meat into a machine for the purpose of makintt a sansa«e. The department will now be enabled to take out national figures relatina to 46 classe. instead of only seven as hitherto.