The Graduating Class of 1967 Has Donated Manual Card Keypunch
October 23, 2013 | | Press Release
<p><b><i>The Graduating Class of 1967 has donated a Type 001 Manual Card Keypunch to Chattanooga State. This keypunch was manufactured in 1929 and was used through the 1960’s.</i></b></p>
<p>This keypunch was discovered in a 1972 analysis phase of a project to replace The Company’s 1401 billing/collection card system. The goal was to develop a new system for the 360 Mainframe without using cards; this project would take years to complete. If we found things in our analysis that would improve the current process and didn’t take a lot of time and resources we would implement those changes.</p>
<p><i>The old system would not process a batch of premium payment if one card misread and didn’t balance to the header. Therefore, the total batch would reject and be sent back to the Department until it was corrected and sent back for reprocessing. That meant that policyholders’ payments were not marked as paid and deposit were not made to The Companies’ bank account until the batch was reprocessed. </i></p>
<p><i>We found one collection clerk who was the most efficient and timely getting premiums paid and bank deposits made. She was using this old manual keypunch from the ‘30s to correct the bad card and send them back for processing. This bypassed The Company’s centralized keypunch area that had a two to three day turnaround time for card requests. </i></p>
<p><i>Once the Department Head understood the process, he decided to call the Vendor and purchase one of the new modern keypunches for his collection area. This resulted, over time, decentralizing The Company’s keypunch area and placing the people and hardware in the work areas. No one lost their job and the Vendor sold additional hardware. </i></p>
<p><i>The Vendor had the old keypunch mounted with a plaque and presented to The Department Head in appreciation for the additional sales and continued partnership.</i> </p>