Stewart Logan, LEO III at Ravenscraig
Colvilles Ltd., Ravenscraig Steelworks
A Short Description of the Leo3/32 Production Planning & Control System
Introduction
Colvilles Ltd. Steelmakers installed a Leo 3 (No.32) in their Ravenscraig Works
in Motherwell in 1963. In 2021, Dr. William (Bill) Jack, leader of the systems
development team described in a paper to the Leo Computers Society the systems
developed and run on this computer. I was the lead analyst on the Production
Planning and Control system and was asked by the Society if I could provide
further detail on how Lector OMR techniques were used. I was not involved in
the concurrent development of the payroll system so my recollections are only of
the PPC system. This request was made nearly 60 years after we had acquired the
Leo and all documentation had long since been destroyed. We clearly did not
have the foresight to realise that what we were developing could be regarded as
pioneering.
Locating some lost information
Perhaps a word is in order as to how I managed to get a little more detail. In 1967
I had just got married and was working on draft drawings of a house I planned to
build. By pure chance, I recently found that one of these drawings had, on the
back of it, most of a flow chart of the Production Planning & Control system that
we had implemented. I think it is probably just missing 1 or 2 operations down
one edge so it gives a very good picture of the scope of the system. It is
unfortunately very faded and not really suitable for adding to the Leo archives. I
was able to pick up much detail of the use of Lector documents from it but,
regretfully, have not managed to trace any of the actual documents. This flowchart, however, enabled me to extract further information about the system.
Why optical mark reading?
The primary requirement of the system was to provide information as at 6am for
day staff who started work at 8.30am and for production meetings at 9am. This
was not possible to achieve using conventional data preparation.
Collection of order details
Lector documents were used to collect data on new orders, order amendments,
order cancellations and order completions. These documents were completed by
sales personnel in an office environment. This information was input to the
system run at 6am daily thus providing an updated order file.
Collection of steel movements and change of status
As Dr. Jack explained in his paper, for process scheduling reasons, it was not
possible, unless an order was very small, to move all of the material for it through
the plant together. However, by tracking the movement of every piece of material,
whether or not allocated to an order, the system could provide the requirements
of every order and the present progress towards order completion including
whether there was a shortfall of material for it.
Lector documents collected information on the creation of steel slabs, their
dimensions and allocation to orders and the coil of steel produced from each slab.
Thereafter, Lector documents were used to record every movement and change
of status of a coil. In later processing, a coil could be cut along its length into 2
or more narrower ones. Coils could also be cut into bundles of sheets and further
processed. Lector documents were also used to track material through these
processes. Where a coil was despatched to Gartcosh Works finishing processes
the tracking continued until despatch from there as either coils or bundles of
sheets. The data recorded on each coil or bundle as it passed through the processes
included a code for the process, any change to dimensions, any change to weight
and any change to grade (which resulted in it being removed from its allocated
order). A lector document was also used to collect information on surplus stock
being allocated to suitable orders. The tracking of coil and sheet bundles
movement thus covered all processes until the material was despatched.
The Lector documents were completed by recorders on the shop floor (see
appendix 1). The data was collected through a 24 hour period and input to the
Lector machines at Ravenscraig and Gartcosh. Trials showed that time was
probably insufficient to get the Gartcosh Lector paper-tape output driven over to
Ravenscraig after 6am. add it to the Ravenscraig data, complete the system run
and get the Gartcosh print-outs delivered all before 8.30am. A paper-tape reader
to paper-tape punch link was thus commissioned between Gartcosh and
Ravenscraig.
The system produced production reports for morning progress and planning
meetings at 9am. Additionally, order file reports were produced showing the
present status of each order so that remedial action could be taken if it was
running late or short of material. Lists were produced of the stock ahead of each
production unit to assist schedulers with their work and to greatly simplify
periodic stock checks. Subsequent stock-checks showed the system to be highly
accurate.
Analysis of the recovered flow chart indicates that there were 52 Cleo routines
providing vetting and files updating together with about 50 printed reports. There
were upwards of 30 sort routines. I do not have actual figures but there must have
been many hundreds of order and stock changes every 24 hours.
Development team
Initially, the team comprised about 9 personnel who worked on systems analysis
and the early stages of systems design. As work progressed, 6 of the team then
programmed the analytical work. It seems remarkable that the system design and
implementation was done by only about 3 systems analysts and 6 analystprogrammers using Cleo, which speaks highly of that language. The basic
tracking and reporting system was implemented in late 1965 by the team that had
only been trained early that year. However, continuous enhancements followed
in the use of all the data that was being collected.
Further development
Round about 1970, under a British Steel reorganisation, the Leo 3 was to be
replaced by an IBM 360/40. It indicates how highly the Leo system was regarded
that the suite of programs was rewritten almost unchanged in PL1 to run on the
IBM machine. This rewritten system which was implemented in 1973 still used
Lector documents for several years until replaced by on-line terminals.
Stewart Logan
November 2021
Appendix 1 – Design of Lector forms
Trial OMR documents were printed and tested out on shop-floor production
recorders. Most of the data to be collected was numeric; items such as material
identity, any changes to dimensions, weight, grade or anything else that could
change at any specific production unit. Alpha data was very limited and normally
restricted to one of several characters. The test documents had the particular
processing unit identity pre-printed on them. As most of the date to be collected
was numeric, each character of a particular parameter to be input was represented
by four, what we called, soup-bowls labelled 1, 2, 3 and 6. Thus, by filling in no
more than 2 of these soup-bowls by pencil, any digit from 0 to 9 could be
represented. Thus recording a material identity of 5 numeric characters would be
represented on the pre-printed form by 5 groups of these 4 soup-bowls. The
choices of the limited acceptable alpha characters were all represented by
individual soup-bowls. We were advised that shop-floor personnel would not
understand this. We argued that anyone who knew how to fill in a pools coupon
would soon master it. Trials showed that we were right. Subsequently, once the
system was implemented, we only had one failure – a person who was dyslexic.
Ron Marshall
I worked on Leo II at Cadby Hall and Leo III/1 at Hartree House as a technician.
I had become disillusioned with the Banking and Insurance industries which formed the
basis of my first work experience.
I joined Leo Computers in early 1960 – I had previously been working on teleprinters at
the GPO and Leo were looking for technicians to service the paper tape data entry
equipment. I was at Cadby Hall for some training prior to this. I worked – among others –
with Robin Stanley Jones and I think Maurice Blackburn was there as an Engineer at that
time.
I worked shifts maintaining the peripherals and received training on the mainframe. It
was an exciting time. I remember a visit by the Duke of Edinburgh and the programmers
had arranged for the mainframe to play ‘The Sailor’s Hornpipe’ for him! There was a later
visit by the Queen Mother who asked to see a computer.
I left Leo in 1963 – I had just got married and my new wife’s father invited me to join
him in his car retail business – big mistake! I re-joined what was now English Electric Leo
Marconi ( I think) in 1967 and once again worked at Hartree House. I became Technical
Support for London and also trained on the VM operating system.
My manager was John Francis and I seem to remember working with Dave Hewer
another Technician.I left what was now ICL in 1975 to emigrate to Canada – I had been
trained on the then new Cougar Solid State Memory Systems so my skills were in demand
in Canada. I worked first for ITEL where I trained on IBM 360 systems and peripherals
and then Storage Technology (STC later STK) where I became VP Customer Service until
1990.
I retired in 2005.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c96r3t2tj4r83ci/Ron%20Marshall%20memoir.doc?dl=0
Joe McNulty DOB: 1940 Joined LEO: 1966
Role in LEO: Site Maintenance Engineer LEO III; System 4
Abstract: Born in Northern Ireland, father miner, mother textile worker, moved with
large family to village in Northumberland, failed 11+, educated in local elementary
school till age of 15 without any qualifications or certificates. One brother was an
apprentice electrician at a local pit and attended Carlisle Technical College one day a
week. Joe taking a peek at his brother’s books became interested and he too became an
apprentice electrician at a local coal mine and attending Carlisle Technical College where
he gained his ONC in mathematics and Electronics at the highest level. In 1961 opted to
join RAF as a Radar technician serving part of his time in Malta. On completing his
service, having acquired a love for electronics, looked for a job with computers and in
1966 was taken on by EELM to train as maintenance engineer on LEO IIIs at Radley
House. Notes the quality of training he received. “I loved every minute of the
course”. Moved to Scotland as site engineer on a LEO IIIs and System 4
machines. After a successful career left ICL in 1972 to work in a number of electronic
companies, before setting up his own consultancy and completing an honours degree in
mathematics at the Open University. Joe retired in 2009. Final words from a fascinating
memoir: “For me, I think, LEO provided an environment and situation in which I could
succeed in my own terms. I was doing work that I could understand, that I liked and that
made sense to me. In a sense, that gave me an attitude of if I can understand and use a
computer, I can learn to do anything. That’s a big thing to say about a company but I
believe that, even then, it was a special sort of company with special people in it”.
Repository: Dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/search/personal?path=%2F&preview=Joe+McNulty+Memoir.
doc&qsid=46282171009852707120531243657035&query=joe+mcnulty&search_token=
maaZCi5EZfs9ghMHde3MaOmE5gIkeIs7mVlUbNhfSkQ%3D
Copyright: LEO Computers Society
Restrictions: None Known
Chris Metcalf
I fell out of secondary school at 16 in the late 1960s after failing most of my GCEs and
joined the Civil Service in central London filing bits of paper as a temporary clerical
officer. After failing to join ICL my father thankfully suggested I get a transfer (without
interview!) to the Census Office computer section at Eastcote London. On arrival I was
told I was a week early but as soon as I was introduced to the work I knew I was in the
right work area which lasted 25 years! As a computer operator on the LEO 3/10 I started
as peripheral loader (magnetic tapes, paper tape, printers) and when I got my Executive
Officer grade I was in charge of running the computer. We had very sociable evening
overtime sessions playing bridge whilst long computer programs ran. Typically four hour
magnetic tape sorts with no restarts! I recall the water cooling system barely coped in the
hot weather. I made my mark during a payroll run when a printer cheque number
sequence problem occurred, by altering the tape block count in binary using the
oscilloscope.
I later moved to the ICL 1904? computer on the same site and then transferred to the new
Fujitsu? 1905E and George 3 at Newport South Wales. On promotion to Higher
Executive Officer (only 1 in 5 applicants were successful I recall!) I headed the
Operations Systems Support section. I wrote a world first macro to allow files to be
deleted from an on screen list. 24 levels of nested IFs! Later moved on program system
support and programming and EU & UK project work. Not too bad a career for someone
who had few recognisable qualifications or had ever passed an aptitude test! I did get my
AMBCS and still working!
Ross Milbourne Memoir and Tribute to Lyons, LEO and its people.
I have lived and worked with computers in industry all of my life, and have now retired. It
has also been a lifelong hobby, as well as helping pay to bring up my family. The career I
followed, from COBOL Computer Programmer in the 1970s, to I.T. Director in large organisations
over the past 30 years, was founded by your father, David Caminer, and his colleagues at Lyons.
For that, I will always be grateful to him and the team, as well as deeply interested in what
people like David did in their lives, from which so much later sprang.
To make your mark in history, you normally have to be in the right place at the right time, with
the right equipment, education and ideas. However, you also have to be a very talented person in
your own right, or part of a talented team, to make the most of that opportunity and turn it into
a success. To make your mark in history, you normally have to be in the right place at the right
time, with the right equipment, education and ideas. However, you also have to be a very
talented person in your own right, or part of a talented team, to make the most of that
opportunity and turn it into a success.
I hold a Master’s Degree, with Distinction, in Computing – that was an absolute
pleasure to study for. In my retirement, I have had the opportunity to build a good vintage
computer collection, as well as a library of early publications about activity in the field. I
volunteer for museums like the CCH at Cambridge, and have restored some of their early
‘home’ computers, such as the Altair 8800s and IMSAI 8080, for public display and
demonstration. I understand that they have also carried out a good deal of work related to
LEO in the past few years.
For my part, I have gradually accumulated more material about LEO during this
period, including collecting a few of the ‘standard’ books on the subject, and I have loved
reading about it. As I have delved deeper, I have come across other articles and material to
add to my understanding and, finally, tripped across ‘LEOPEDIA’ on the Internet. What
an amazing resource!
I quickly recognised that ‘LEO Remembered – by the people who worked on the
world’s first business computers’ was a ‘must have’ that was missing from my collection
on the subject: hence my request to obtain a copy from you.
On a private note, I have a couple of letters in my collection from John Simmons to
Richard Sharpe, the editor of ‘Computing’ Magazine, back in 1979. These were contained
in Richard’s personal copy of: ‘LEO and the Managers’, published by John Simmons, that
came onto the open market recently.
They mention David Caminer, when he was living in Luxembourg, apparently.
‘Computing’ were clearly wanting to talk to David about his experiences for articles they
were writing at that time, given it was the ‘Silver Jubilee’ of LEO. John Simmons had
offered to get in touch with David for them, to gauge to what degree he might like to
participate.
Ten days later, came the reply, which John quotes as follows:
“Of course, pleased to give what help I can to the project you mention. Unhappily, most of
the earlier papers of LEO programming seem to have perished in one of those necessary
but sometimes destructive clearances of the filing areas. It wasn’t easy to know thirty
years ago that they should have been given the retention classification of ‘infinity’ as
historic documents!”. How prophetic those words sound now, another 40 years later.
Archived in Dropbox at
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ylqayspiuic8437/Ross%20Milbourne%20memoir.htm?
dl=0
Peter Mills, Memoirs
After National Service, where he was first involved and trained in electronic
engineering, and being demobbed in 1954, Peter responded to an advertisement placed by
Lyons for a job as an electronic/mechanical engineer. Following an aptitude test Peter was
offered a job to join LEO. He spent the next few years helping to keep first LEO I and
then LEO II machines operating. Though leaving LEO Computers he returned to the LEO
fold by joining the LEO team at the Ilford LEO II. In his memoir he tells of his pride of
having worked with LEO.
Repository: Dropbox.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q0sdhjgrh3e05m6/Peter%20Mills%20Memoirs.docx?dl=
0
Andrew Murison, Northwhich. I have just read your article in the February issue of Third Age Matters – I am a member of the Winsford, Cheshire, U3A. In the 1950s and 1960s I worked at Stewarts and Lloyds Ltd. Corby steelworks, who installed a Leo computer in 1958. A school friend of mine, having graduated in mathematics also worked at the steelworks as a programmer on this computer and although I was an engineer and had no official connection with the computer I was shown round by my friend – who was called John Lamb. I remember the “air conditioning” system quite well as my father (now deceased) worked in the S&L new development electrical dept. The “solar gain”(sunlight) on the large picture windows plus the heat produced by the electrical equipment in the computer building caused all the thermal overloads to trip out – stopping the computer. The quickest installation to cool the building was then installed!
Over the years I have lost touch with him so can-not help you as to his whereabouts. In the 1980s the Corby steelworks was demolished and no longer exists but the tube works section was retained in working order (and still is) The tube works is now owned by Tata. Tata have an archive section based at their Shotton works and may have information. The other possible source of information is the Corby Heritage Centre. I have a booklet about Stewarts and Lloyds steelworks which has a picture of the computer and have enclosed a copy.
Robert Murphy. was the computer programmer on the LEO 326 computer in use for the National Savings Bank in Glasgow. I used Intercode and CLEO. The computer was decommissioned in 1974 with the data and systems transferred to an ICL 4/72.
My final task was to print off computer programs and documentation, label them up and package them for sending to the National Savings Archives. If I recall correctly there was a similar exercise going on with the hardware but I was not involved with that.
So there was lots of material kept but I do not know what became of it. It might be worthwhile contacting NS&I to find out what happened to the material and whether you can have it for your project
John Oates, I was involved in Systems Design on the Ford Motors Leo 2/11 between 1960 to its decommissioning on the instructions of FORD US to go IBM. In this time I was mainly responsible for a system to control and monitor the introduction of new models which resulted in a massive elapsed time reduction to launch. If you have any interest, feel free to eMail or call – 01242 239647
Chris Parker, I worked at J Lyons from February 1971 to 1976. My first job was working on the LEO 3/7 and LEO 4/6. I was an operator during the conversion to an IBM365/65 over my first 6 months and, when all the systems had been copied (via a System 4 deck), the LEOs were deconstructed. I have, somewhere in the loft, a circuit board from the LEO 4/6. I read your article in the U3A magazine with interest. I’m not sure what memories I have that have not already come to your attention, but I would be happy to discuss them with you – if you are interested?