Army Service Center
Cincinnati Ordnance District,
Big Four Building,
Cincinnati 1, Ohio
Dear Sir:

Attention: Capt. J. P. Neal,

Historical Officer.

Dear Sir:

In response to your request for information as to our Company's participation in War production, we take pleasure in supplying you with material following the outline which you suggested.

1. HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF THE COMPANY

The National Cash Register Company was founded in 1884, by John H. Patterson and his brother, Frank J. Patterson, in Dayton, Ohio, for the purpose of manufacturing a device for recording the receipts of cash in retail stories. It erected its first factory building in 1888, shortly after a considerable improvement in product had been made, and the sales force had been increased from 5 to 16 men. Again in 1893, a further improved product was offered, and the factory was enlarged to care for additional business. Since that time, the growth of plant and the constant improvement in the quality and variety of products have gone hand in hand. Today, the plant site covers 27 acres of land, with 26 buildings, and over 50 acres of floor space.

Just before World War II, the Company manufactured more than 500 sizes and models of cash registers and accounting machines, designed not only for retail stores, but for hotels, installment houses, banks, savings and loan associations, public utilities, and the accounting and auditing departments of manufacturers an commercial houses. The products have been constantly made more efficient for particular uses, and the line has been expanded to meet the needs of business as they arose. Notable is the fact that the idea of the Pattersons,-- long, useful, and profitable service to every buyer of a National product,--has never been forgotten: the products are precision devices, of the best available workmanship and materials, adapted for every place "where money is handled or records kept."

The National Cash Register Company has always been a "home-town" industry, and an integral part of the community life of Dayton. Its factory personnel has grown to a total of approximately 6,500 in normal times, and that was the number on the payroll when first the Company undertook war work. Of even greater import, however, is the fact that the skills of employees have been the result of many years of continuous service, and of the fact that employment has often involved two or more generations of the same family, and the simultaneous service of several members of the same family. In March, 1944, a twenty-five year Club was inaugurated among employees, with an initial membership of more than 1,300- equal to better than 20% of normal factory staff. This condition will do much

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to explain the reasons for the types of war work undertaken, the achievements registered, and the part taken in the many war-time activities of the community.

It is appropriate to record here that the Company has a record as a pioneer in many of the modern business practices today, such as sound industrial relatives policies (health, medical and dental clinics, good light and ventilation, employee cafeterias, recreation park and free lunch-hour entertainment), suggestion contests among employees, production incentive payments, and so on. In the field of selling, the Company was the first to develop sales schools, a sales manual, use of visual education, and other practices now common.

2. PEACETIME PRODUCTS AND PURSUITS

The normal products of NCR were, as suggested, a full line of cash registers and accounting machines. With the exception of a few technical items, all parts are manufactured by the Company to commercially fine tolerances, carefully inspected at every stop, assembled, sold as finished products, installed, and usually provided mechanical maintenance and service during their period of use. Not a few machines have been in continuing use for 50 years and more, a substantial evidence of their precise and lasting construction. The line of machines runs from a relatively simple manually-operated one-total cash register, suitable for the smallest merchant, to high-production payroll machines used by the largest industries and governmental units, to write thousands of pay checks each pay period, simultaneously with the other payroll records required by law, by good business usage and demanded by the employees. The more intricate the machine, the greater the savings to be achieved in critical man-power, and the speedier the production of absolutely accurate essential records. That these machines are engineered and produced with the utmost precision is evidenced by the fact that users must depend upon their uninterrupted performance, since any system based upon their use cannot be suspended or delayed.

3. INITIAL CONTACT WITH THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT

In the Fall of 1939,- before participation of the United States in war was seriously contemplated by the public, the Ordnance Department and officials of the National Cash Register Company undertook a joint survey of equipment and skills, looking toward the possibility of war production. It was decided that our facilities were best adapted to the production of small precision devices, requiring a high degree of "know-how", equipment capable of very fine tolerances and in sufficient variety to permit complete manufacture, assembly, and inspection.

This study was followed in April, 1940, by receipt of an "Educational Contract" for the M-48 fuze,- a contract which would provide opportunity for thorough study and tooling, preparatory to anticipated production.

4. NATURE AND TYPE OF WORK CALLED FOR BY
          DRAWING AND SPECIFICATIONS.

Immediately upon receipt of the "Educational Contract", the Company undertook a complete production study, involving these activities:

• 1) Prepare a bill of materials
• 2) Develop of plan of operations
• 3) Process study, including designation of the equipment needed
• 4) Tool designs

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• 5) Factory layout
• 6) Inspection procedure and requirements

Completion of this production study was immediately followed by the actual creation of a "pilot" operation, with one of each type of tool being produced.

Finally, a full specimen operation was undertaken, to test tools, layout and processing under actual production conditions.

Full-scale production of this item was not authorized until November, 1940. Meanwhile, at the request of the Company's Canadian plan, and under contract issued by the British Purchasing Commission, we had actually planned, tooled, set up and produced parts for other war materiel.

Shortly after production of the M-48 Fuze started, the Company was given "production study contracts" for additional war items, notably the M-52 point detonating Fuze, and the M-51 37 mm. armor--piercing shot.

By gradual stages, all of these developments led to acceptance of the contracts for war materiel listed below. From this compilation have been omitted any references to supplemental contracts for the same items.

SEE TABLE I

5. NEW BUILDING OR EXPANSION PROGRAM

NCR's building program for war work has been virtually nil. A small one-story addition was constructed, at the Company's expense, and this represented merely an advance in timing for plans for the Company’s own future use.

At the outset the Company chose to convert existing equipment, rather than to essay the purchase of new equipment. In the four years since its initial contact with the Ordnance Department, practically the only additional equipment obtained from outside sources has been machinery purchased by the United States Government and installed on our premises for specific uses. This equipment represented a purchase price of $2,600,000, and represents a total expansion of productive facilities of only about 10%. (See Table II)

Upon receipt of its early contracts, the Company's decision was to put war work first. It selected the best equipment in its plant for the purposes; later, as war production mounted, it thoroughly re-conditioned machines which were ready for replacement in normal course, prepared to re-condition other equipment as it reached replacement age, and even restored to productive capacity a few machines which had actually been abandoned.

Illustration: Fifteen old screw machines were re-conditioned to produce 200,000 Fuzes a day. Two abandoned machines 35 years old were trussed up, braced and motorized, and have contributed a share to war production.

Under these circumstances, the need was rather for rearrangement of our production layout, instead of planning for new equipment and facilities.

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In all of this planning and in all of these decisions, the Company was motivated by an urgent desire to get into actual quantity production without delay, and to relieve the demands on the machine tool industry during its most critical period.

SEE TABLE II

6. EDUCATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENT WORK PERFORMED

In additional to the "educational contract" and the "production study contracts" already considered, the Company hastened its educational progress and constructive development potentialities, by

• 1) Sending key men, often for months at a time, to arsenals already in production on the same or like items.
• 2) Sending key men to visit with other manufacturers to share experience.
• 3) Exchanging information, experiences, blueprints, layouts, production figures, operation sequences and improved methods with other manufacturers likewise engaged, for the common good. Among these were:

• American Air Filter Company, Inc.
• American Safety Razor Company
• Bailey Products Corporation
• Benton Harbor Malleable Industries
• Electric Auto-Lite Company
• Eversharp, Incorporated
• Frigidaire Corporation
• Fulton Sylphon Company
• International Business Machine Company
• Link-Belt Company
• Kingston Products Company
• W. L. Maxson Corporation
• Meadows Division, Electric Household Utilities Corp.
• Mechanics Universal Joints Division, Borg-Warner Corp.
• Murray-Ohio Manufacturing Company
• National Pressure Cooker Company
• Omco Products Corporation
• Parker Pen Company
• Pontiac Motors
• Schaible Foundry and Brass Works
• Sperry Gyroscope Company
• Superior Die and Tool Company

• 4) assigning the full facilities of the Company's engineering research, planning, process engineering, tool designing, and tool room to war work exclusively.
• 5) undertaking extensive research projects of a secret nature from the U. S. Navy.

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• 6) redesigning numerous devices and parts, to achieve line production, and to conserve critical machines, materials and manpower. A few examples:

• M-43 Mechanical Time Fuze
  The substitution of drawn steel and malleable iron saved annually 50 tons of critically needed aluminum and 450 tons of critically needed brass. The change in process saved 500 man-hours a month.
• K-3 K-4 Computing Gun Sights
  Drawing and specifications refined for straight line production. Tolerances held closer than specified, thereby speeding up assembly. Also redesigned to permit adjustments without necessity for disassembling and reassembling entire sight, with a direct saving of 9,900 man-hours monthly. The same change in design eliminated the subsequent need for machining in the field during servicing.
  Also designed a special cam-grinding machine, which produced more accurate cams considerably faster, with a saving of 4 cam-cutting machines and 1,800 man-hours a month.
• 1900 CECO Carburetor
  Throttle shaft assembly changed from built up design to a one-piece die-cast, resulting in a saving of 11,323 man-hours a month. Diaphragm and Retainer Assembly, Pressure Regulator Body, and Accelerating Pump Guide Valve Body changed from sand casting to die casting, showing total savings over previous machine operations of 2,450 man-hours a month.
• Oerlikon AA Gun Magazine
  Side plates: NCR designed a method requiring one punch press (with 1 operator and an assistant) to replace the original method which would have required 367 special groove cutting machines to do the same work, and substituted copper brazing for welding, thus improving the quality of the product.
  Mouthpiece: a new method allowed three broaches to replace 26 critical milling machines. Flame cutting of slots released more milling machines.
  Spring Axis: Instead of using lathes, profiles and mills, NCR first utilized an assembly of fabricated steel, and later a die cast zinc base alloy. Total machines released,-- 18 screw machines, 9 cam cutting machines, 1 milling machine, 1 drill press.

7. DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED DURING CHANGEOVER PERIOD

As is evident from the nature of the Company's normal practices and products, it had already available adequate engineering, research planning, process engineering and control, tool design, equipment for conversion, cost systems, and inspection technique. Furthermore, its actions were not complicated by new plant or new equipment. Hence, the changeover period posed prob-

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lems of layout and arrangement, allocation of machines, and manpower.

Most of the specifications received from Government agencies were well engineered, and designed for actual production.

The Company occasionally faced a minor difficulty, and in the case of the Oerlikon AA Gun Magazine, where the blueprints and specifications received were written in Swiss, and employed the metric system. Furthermore, specifications were not attuned to American production line methods, as will be evidenced by the fact that original assembly time was indicated as 21/2 hours, and cut, under our methods, to 25 minutes.

8. DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED DURING ACCELERATION PERIOD

The comments on the changeover period hold equally good for the period of accelerated production, with a major exception,-- the vastly increased need for rapid training of more inspectors. Personnel training will be considered in a later section: the Company did develop for its own particular needs such inspection items as precision air gauges, comparators and the like.

9. OTHER PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED: EQUIPMENT, MATERIALS, MANPOWER

• Equipment

In addition to conversion of existing machines and equipment to conserve critical machinery, materials and manpower, NCR developed special equipment to speed up production, eliminate extra handling, and permit the substitution of inexperienced women for skilled men. A few illustrations:

• 1) Special drilling machine to drill 4 holes and hollow-mill 2 lugs in the same operation, for Oerlikon AA Gun Magazine Mouthpiece.
• 2) Multiple-Station Dial machine which does simultaneously one milling and two drilling operations, or relay igniting charge housing.
• 3) Multiple-Station Dial machine which progressively drills, assembles, crimps, and stamps four 20 mm. Fuze Bodies at a time.
• 4) Automatic Indexing Multiple-Spindle drill, doing the work of size standard multiple-spindle drills, for K-3 K-4 computing gun sights.
• 5) For testing, a mechanical loading and unloading device for the Oerlikon AA Gun Magazine, using dummy shells over and over, thus saving ammunition.
• Materials:

A number of examples of material substitution have already been mentioned. A brief resume of some of the more important savings appears below:

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Product	Production	Savings
Oerlikon AA Gun Magazine
Side plates	55,000 monthly	41 tons of metal monthly
Spring axis	"	33 tons of metal monthly
Feed block of Axis assembly	"	24 1/2 tons of aluminum monthly
Loading frame	"	84.3 tons of bronze monthly
M-43 Fuze	60,000 monthly	4 1/2 tons aluminum monthly
		37 1/2 tons brass monthly

At the outset, the Company found itself with stocks of materials on hand which were not suited to our war material production. This material was offered to other manufacturers at the earliest opportunity, and listed with the Government as available.

Skilled Labor:

The skilled labor problem grew more and more acute, since the type of peacetime production in this area lent itself with peculiar force to the performance of war contracts. Further, the Army Air Force Service branches in Dayton expanded enormously in an incredibly short space of time, and an Army decision to place certain Signal Corps functions here as well aggravated the manpower situation still further.

As a result of this combination of circumstances, Dayton was named in the first group of cities in the country to be placed in the category of #1 Critical Labor Areas. For not only had local manpower reservoirs been exhausted by the needs of the Armed Forces installations and the manufacturing enterprises, but the added burden on housing, transportation and service enterprises of all kinds became almost insupportable.

The community, under the leadership of executives of NCR, determined to see that these circumstances were altered as quickly as possible, in order that we might continue to play our full part in the war effort, and it was successful in having the City removed from that classification. This problem and its solution are covered in the attached booklet, "A critical area faces its War Problems."

In this process, every attempt was made to survey and utilize existing supplies of potential workers, particularly women. As will be demonstrated in the following section, our Company's attempts to utilize women in jobs which had customarily required men has been satisfactory.

10. PERSONNEL GROWTH AND TRAINING METHODS ADOPTED

The growth of factory personnel is graphically indicated in the table which follows. That information is supplemented by a table showing the increase in the employment of women, and by the table indicating the rate of personnel conversion to war production

SEE TABLE III

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• Growth in total factory personnel
• Growth in women personnel
• Rate of personnel conversion to war work

Training took many forms. Over 500 Supervisors, Foremen, Job Foremen and others have been trained in Job Instruction Training with 100 more new training; more than 250 have been certified in Job Relations Training; courses in Job Methods Training are now being started. We have shown to the supervisory group a dozen films devoted to instruction in the proper use and conservation of tools, proper processing, the effective management and use of manpower. NCR has for many years provided for its employees Night school courses in a wide variety of subjects, and had erected a building which was used for that exclusive purpose. Before the war, a large proportion of subjects taught might be called "education for enjoyment," sewing, dressmaking, public speaking, business English, and so on. Other courses were designed to help our employees better themselves in business, through stenography, salesmanship, and the like. For the duration, only courses of aid to the war effort are given, with a view to upgrading skills, and speeding up the training for war production.

A machine shop had been a part of our Night School equipment. This shop was opened up to day students, particularly cooperative students from educational institutions. These boys,-- and some women,-- were trained in the shop until ready to take semi-skilled position, where their training continued at the bench.

Inspection posed a particular problem in education, since that work grew until a peak of 1,500 people were reached, over 50% of whom were women. A continuous school, with courses of two to four weeks each was undertaken, utilizing existing teaching material, covering precision measuring, starting with elementary gauges and equipment, on through more advanced stages, to some of the problems of plate checking for those qualified.

NCR formed a Labor-Management War Production group to speed war work. It has functioned continuously since April 1, 1942, and its contribution to the Company's war performance is genuine. Its factory work is done by the following committees:

Planning	Publicity	Cutting Waste
Complete use of machines		Taking Care of Tools
and breaking bottlenecks
Fire Prevention	Preventing breakdowns	Posters
Suggestions	Office and Factory	Absenteeism
	Inspection
Safety		Transportation

All of these committees have been active, and frequent meetings have elicited numerous opportunities for conservation, for correction of imperfect conditions, and for better operations. NCR is said to be the first company to utilize suggestion contests. It

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has benefited from them for a long period of years. Since the war started, the contests have been devoted almost exclusively to suggestions which would help in war work. It is a source of gratification to the Company that out of 11 throughout the nation recently honored by the War Production Drive Headquarters in Washington for significant contributions to war production, two were NCR employees.

The Labor-Management War Production Committee has also assumed responsibility for employee participation in the purchase of war bonds, both under payroll deduction plan, and for cash during the war load drives. The Company was one of the first to win its "Minute Man" flag, for percentage of participation, its flag for 10% of payroll purchases, its 15% flag, and it has led the community in cash purchases. Since March 1, 1942, total employee purchases of bonds have exceeded $11,000,000 (face value).

11. UTILIZATION OF OTHER PLANTS IN SUBCONTRACTING
12. MONEY VALUE OF PURCHASES

Figures of the Company make no distinction between the value of materials obtained from sub-contractors and the value of other purchases, inasmuch as all suppliers, of any material whatsoever going into war production, are considered secondary contractors. The figures below represent the total purchases from all sources.

PURCHASES FOR WAR WORK

Year	Dollar Volume of    War Work	Orders Placed Outside
1941	4,303,029.77	1,559,761.95
1942	34,714,740.02	8,737,018.19
1943	59,780,613.99	14,790,968.09
	98,798,383.78	25,186,728,82

April 7, 1944
The N. C. R. Co.

13. RESULTS ACHIEVED TO DATE

One indication of accomplishment is the money savings which have accrued to the Government through voluntary price reductions, exclusive of renegotiations. Illustrations of such savings follow:

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Product	Original Price	Number of Voluntary Reductions	Period (Months)	Last Price
Oerlikon Magazine	$  94.78 ea.	8	26	$  35.70
M-43 Mech. Time Fuze	5.858 ea.	3	10	3.24
K-3 Gun Sight	2553.59 ea.	5	18	890.70
(Note: Similar reductions in K-4 Gun Sight)
1900 CECO Carburetor	420.00 ea.	1	6	375.00
D-8 Bomb Sight	233.05 ea.	3	10	156.00
20 mm. Fuze Body	.0738 ea.	5	21	.02253
(Navy-- including change from brass to zinc base alloy)

For original and continued excellence of production, the Company has been awarded the Army-Navy "E" pennant, with four stars.

There have been no occasions when sights or other materiel have been rejected, except a very few cases of minor damage to threads in handling, or other minor defects of like nature. We are operating under an "A" Inspection Rating for practically all of the products which we are manufacturing.

SEE TABLE IV

15. COMMENTS AND CRITICISMS

It is our observation that the overall job of planning and execution of war materiel production has been unusually well done. The value of the engineering planning and counsel provided by the Army and Navy has obviously been of great importance and assistance, especially for plants which have not had complete facilities of their own.

We believe, too, that the method which was adopted early in this plan, of letting out educational contracts, has been fully justified, and has demonstrated its value in case of subsequent emergencies.

Viewing the entire matter in retrospect, we offer the following suggestions for a more efficient and smoother operation in any like case.

• 1) An earlier adoption of a Controlled Materials Plan
• 2) The use of occasional educational contracts during normal times, at least to the point of actually planning production on items in specific plants throughout the country. The funds so spent would be a speculation if there were no war emergency, but in case of conflict, would undoubtedly pay great dividends.

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• 3) Adoption of centralized war procurement for all war agencies. If this is not feasible, the adoption of a precisely uniform procedure, to avoid delays and conserve time and manpower.
• 4) Reduction in the amount of paper work required both of Government agencies and of producers, based on factual studies of sound procurement procedure.
• 5) Perhaps an extension of the principle of "Quality control" in inspection procedure, but accompanied by proper educational and demonstrational preliminary work within the procurement agencies and manufacturers.

War production benefited so obviously from the collection, correlation and analysis of problems and their solutions among producers of identical materiel, through the establishment of Industry Integration Committees, that we believe the device should be adopted as a part of any subsequent war production plan.

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TABLE I

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WAR CONTRACTS

	Date of First Contract Award	Delivery
Education Order -- M48 P.D. Fuze	April, 1940
Production Study -- M52 Fuze	April, 1940
Production Study -- M51 A. P. Shot	April, 1940
M48 P. D. Fuze	Nov., 1940	Mar., 1941
M54 H.E. Shell, 37 mm.	Nov., 1940	Mar., 1941
M50 Dummy Fuze	Nov., 1940	Mar., 1941
Shell Tracer & Igniter	Jan., 1941	Sept.., 1941
20mm. A. A. Gun magazine	Jan., 1941	May, 1941
Relay Igniting Charge Housing	Jan., 1941	May, 1941
M5A1 37mm. Practice Shell	Feb., 1941	Mar., 1941
20mm. Fuze, No. 254 (Navy)	Mar., 1941	Mar., 1941
Navy Research Projects	Mar., 1941	Secret
20mm. Fuze, Nos. 253 (Army)	June, 1941	June, 1941
Model 1900 & 58 Ceco Carburetors	Jan., 1942	Feb., 1945
M43 Mechanical Time Fuze	Nov., 1941	Apr., 1942
D-8 Bombsight	Jan., 1942	Jan., 1942
K-3, & K-4 Computing Sight Assemblies	Jan., 1942	July, 1942
S-1 Bombsight	April, 1942	Mar., 1943
30 Cal. Carbine Gun Parts	Jan., 1943	Apr., 1943
Navy Metal Collars	June, 1943	Aug., 1943
M-120 Bomb Nose Fuze	Aug., 1943	Nov., 1943
M-61 Mechanical Time Fuze	Sept., 1943	Dec., 1943

This material is intended for educational purposes only and should be credited to Deborah Anderson. Any other uses should be by permission only. Please contactDeborah Andersonfor further information

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