Manufacturing the system
In September 1971, the IBM System/7 began rolling
off a new and unusual style production line at the General
System Division’s (GSD) manufacturing facility in
Boca Raton, Fla. The following text describing that manufacturing
line is excerpted from an article published that month
in the GSD edition of IBM News (Vol. 8, No. 18),
an employee publication. The illustration below is not
from that article.
The line is built around specially designed “shopping
carts” that, when stocked with parts to build
computers, become self-contained assembly stations.
The new approach is more a variation of modern supermarket
techniques than of traditional factory production lines.
With display islands stocking many thousands of System/7
parts and with workers loading carts from computer-generated
“shopping lists,” part of Boca Raton’s
assembly area carries a distinct supermarket appearance.
System/7, IBM’s lowest priced computer, is designed
to monitor and control laboratory, industrial and other
processes. Its input more commonly comes from sensors
-- pressure or temperature gauges -- than from punched
cards.
System/7s are already in operation within IBM locations
worldwide for training and applications development
[see page 2].
Testing automotive exhaust emissions or controlling
refineries -- the types of jobs System/7 does -- call
for differences in each System/7 production model. Its
design, using up to 12 modules to accommodate those
differences, led Boca Raton to the “supermarket”
approach, believed to be unique within the data processing
industry.
Bernard Sassen, a manufacturing engineer who devised
the technique, said: “It gives us maximum ability
to mass produce custom modules.”
Because there are as many as 59,000 different combinations
of parts in the small computers, “conveyor belts
didn’t lend themselves to customized production,”
Sassen said.
The solution he devised, after looking at three different
approaches, involves a “pre-kit” process
based on the specially designed carts, in which module
parts are gathered, assembled, tested and delivered
to the final production area.
The “kit process” also means that much
of each computer is built by a single worker.
The technique works like this:
A parts collector, using a computer-generated list
of components needed to build a specific System/7 module,
stocks a special cart with all the mechanical and electrical
materials from the central supply or “supermarket”
area.
“Shopping lists” generally contain over
200 different parts in varying quantities ranging from
jumper wires to welded sheet metal frames.
Once the parts are collected, the cart is wheeled to
a work station where it is clamped into place and becomes
a work bench. An assembly technician takes over and
assembles the complete module, using mechanical parts,
cables and circuit cards.
After assembly, the completed module is wheeled on
the cart to a test station, and then to the System/7
final assembly area. Here it is placed in the computer’s
main frame, along with other modules which are designed
to monitor and control specific processes for a customer.
A technician is seen here testing a System/7 feature module.
When all modules are installed, the System/7 is ready
for a final test before panel covers are installed and
it becomes ready for shipment.
“In the past,” said Sassen, “computer
assemblies generally were built on a bench. The assembler,
with parts stored on shelving or on the assembly floor,
would gather components and build the unit. The unit,
or submit, was then sent on to the next operator for
further assembly or test.”
Sassen said the assembly of many combinations of parts
on a System/7 would have required a large storage area
on the manufacturing floor. This factor, along with
the size and weight of the modules, would have made
traditional manufacturing techniques difficult and costly.
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