SORTING OUT THE R.A.F.

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 August 1942, Page 7

SORTING OUT THE R.A.F.

AT RATE OF 400 MEN A MINUTE Essential facts about each of the thousands of members of the R.A.F. are now being sorted out by a special machine at the rate of 400 a minute. Particulars about the man, where he is, what he is doing, are entered up on separate cards. The facts are first represented by tiny holes punched in the cards; the cards are then automatically checked up by another machine and placed in a sorting machine which mechanically groups and arranges them at a speed of 24,000 an hour. They finally go into a tabulating. machine which “translates” the holes into words and figures! Apart from the R.A.F., hundreds of the machines are to-day helping to speed Britain’s war effort in factories producing aeroplanes, ships, guns and all types of munitions of war in different parts .of the country, where they provide hourly records of output of progress of orders, of availability of stocks, in short all the information essential for co-ordinating efforts to speed up and increase output. The War Office has. them and they have recently been supplied to Australia’s Ministry of Munitions. The Egyptian Post Office in Cairo is using them too, with cards done in Arabic for accounting work. Scotland Yard has introduced them for its statistics; and to-day they are also busily recording births, deaths, marriages, accident figures and Board of Trade returns.