Magic Wheel, The (1952)

[Applause] l [Music] oh [Applause] [Applause] well I Guess That's all [Applause] folks sorry to be late I was wondering what happened to you Henry well I've been working on our impregnating ink idea and you know I think I found a new reactor I'm trying three parts acetone that's fine that's fine Henry we won't keep you long right now we want to present to you your membership certificate and pin and welcome you to the 25e club it means something when one out of every six or seven workers has been with the company 25 years and more I want you to know too Henry it's an honor to all of us who already wear the 25e pin every time a man like you earns one well I thank you sir [Music] 25 years it's a long time no it isn't not when you're looking back at [Music] it seems more like the day before yesterday it's funny what a lot of thoughts crowd into a fellow's mind at a time like this I remember that first morning I can see it as plain Pete Wills gave me a lift in his car and then try to talk me out of coming in well here we are Henry but I think you're making a mistake biggest company in their line yeah but what are they going to do when they run out of places to sell them cash registers they've got them about every place now those folks will be out of a job doesn't look like it to me you got to think of your future Henry some young growing concern that still has a chance to go places maybe so but it's besides what's your Chemistry training got to do with making cash registers I don't know yet maybe I just want to work here good luck thanks Pete that was it I just wanted to work here starting some 40 years before that with 13 employees this company had taken a a crude idea and developed it into the most widely used machine in the handling of money and records in the whole world I've seen some of those early models since and heard some fantastic stories about them when the first cash registers came out some people were suspicious of them they took the new machines to be a challenge to their honesty instead of a faster more accurate way of keeping track of sales fortunately this opposition didn't last long but they're just at first some of the rougher elements tried to run cash register men out of town and in those days it took a brave man to be an NCR salesman and clever at hiding his samples what's he look like J I ain't seen him give me a drag here he comes now you won't come pedling them things around here anymore you you sure it's him he ain't dressed like no drummer he ain't carrying no case good evening good evening evening what's he carrying that bumbero for you day it raining maybe he's the new preacher I go on back and sit down give me that bud there he goes into Noah's Ark maybe he's going to buy something hey how long are we going to wait around here why don't you make like a hoop and roll away skd to you [Laughter] too you want to talk private here do Mr pie I'm from the national cash register company of Dayton Ohio now here is some new information about our new Total adder and uh this is a three key sample [Music] M well do my [Music] K many such thoughts flash through my mind that morning 25 years ago why the place was alive with tradition of course I never dreamed then of the two block long assembly lines we have [Music] today I wasn't even thinking primarily of making better cash registers everyone tries to make a better product but here was a company that had gone at it from an entirely New Angle it set out to improve the conditions under which the product was made not only for the sake of the product but for the sake sake of the workers [Music] too they were given the first daylight Factory the walls were made 80% glass the first welfare department for employees was established which has been the model for industrial relations ever since the first inside the plant dining room for the workers that has today grown into nine different dining rooms not counting the main Auditorium where the workers can take their lunches and watch a movie while they eat it is a common saying around Dayton you don't have to carry lunch buckets to NCR you get a homecooked meal in the middle of the day just like home and a choice of pleasant surroundings where the folks can eat together and talk over problems or just have fun [Music] the first factory medical section with free company doctor and nurses and attendance sick benefits Group insurance and so forth some of these ideas came from the employees [Music] themselves suggestion boxes were scattered through the fact Factory and Office Buildings another first in Industry the idea came from the legendary slot in the wall of the do's Palace in ancient Venice a citizen could write out his criticisms and suggestions which the authorities could study without knowing who made them payments to employees for suggestions used total thousands of dollars a year and the company has more than a 100,000 eyes and ears constantly watch watching and listening for ways to do things [Music] better the salesmen were shown how a definite need for their product already existed in millions of places the only catch being they had to learn not only everything about their machines but about all the businesses for which the machines were designed the result was three-fold NCR salesmen became experts in Business Systems and methods and they developed a Brand New Concept in Creative selling the business World calls it the beginning of modern salesmanship and I want to tell you it's as fascinating to me today as it was the first time the way those machines grow right before your eyes the skilled hands that put together up to 20,000 Parts in a single machine many of them not only more intricate but more prec precise than the works of the finest watch they have to be they have to work longer and harder they can't ever be almost right they have to be exactly right each time every time all the time everything we do ends up in figures figures on Wheels big wheels little Wheels Round wheels and diagonal figures on tabs and indicators round square flat and rectangular figures stamped on rolled on and painted on through silk figures black on white and white on black figures that are every color of the rainbow figures that pop up spin around and March up and down and sideways to Infinity I don't say we invented figures but we put more of them to work than anybody I know I knew in the early 1900s Colonel Deeds had brought in a young electrical engineer Charles F King he also invented the selfstarter for automobiles his job at our place was to design a motor strong enough to operate a cash register small enough to fit inside of it since then the register had been expanded developed and refined until it seemed to me even 25 years ago that it could do about everything for a merchant except maybe deliveries packages [Music] but I had this hunch that a company smart enough to make a machine like this the like of which had never been seen before and now it was in daily use all over the world would be smart enough to come up with something else and they were as I soon found out oh yes and I also needn't have worried about getting to use my chemistry training I was amazed at all the different kinds of Specialists it took to run this business technicians in fields I never dreamed would have anything to do with cash [Music] registers authorities on things as different as synthetic rubber and metal allergy printing ink and Plastics Eye Health and store traffic anyway I was running some polarized light tests one day not long after I started here when the department head walks in are you coming Henry almost done good I've just thrown some new specs at us an accounting machine with a typewriter built into it a typewriter yes for descriptive billing it'll open a new field for us man oh day it'll double our Market at least you know something someday we may be doing as much business in accounting machines as we now do in cash registers you know something you might be right looking back at myself 25 years ago I think that's pretty good prophesying we went on to the utility billing machine the bank posting machine the payroll machine all from one little idea but was it a Dandy with all our many specialists for years they've been trying to find a better drive the old tube within a tube system then in use had many limitations here's how one pair of those 100,000 eyes and ears were on the lookout for the good of the company one Saturday afternoon Walter krider a model maker in the model shop at the plant was mowing his lawn when his mower hit a stick or something he stooped to clear the blades and his eyes lighted on something it was as though he were seeing a lawnmower for the first [Music] time sometime later his wife found him in his Sellar [Music] Workshop oh there you are didn't you hear me I've been calling you for supper mama I've got it you have dear got what I found the lawnmower with the grass half cut that's where I got the idea see a wheel within a wheel that'll do it what are you talking about see the square hole on the inside wheel that's the drive wheel we can run a square Rod through that and when we turn the square Rod it turns the inside wheel that turns the outside wheel but when we turn the square rod in the the round hole nothing happen see Mama no come to supper all they have to do is stand up the rod and slip the wheels down over it and that is how today in the patented process the drive shafts are built up with their wheels in any desired combination or series to compute and tabulate and verify as many as 10 20 even 30 and more Columns of figures at a time [Music] such as in the payroll machine utility billing and all the others all made possible by the Little Wheel I call it the magic wheel yes your thoughts sure crowd in on you at a time like this like when I was a boy I used to hear when a person drowned his whole life flashed before him in those few seconds for years I was almost afraid to swim I needn't have worried any more than I needed to worry about coming with the company 25 years ago and think what it will be in the next 25 years over in engineering right now they are working on machines some of them electronic the world may not see for another five or 10 Years yet [Music] H that new finish can take it yes sir everything they do here today tomorrow they do better to take a business that's already the leader and make it even better I wish now I'd told Mr alen that when he gave me the pen look at the Spirit around here you feel it anywhere you go in the plan that NCR family spirit is no bun at least they work together like they mean it and they play together like they mean it whether it's noon hour coits with rubber tires and pegs they stick in the floor between the assembly lines or dark ball or pingpong Checkers or chess or noon time movies or after hours or on weekends and holidays when we get together at Old River the park created by the company for the employees are Stones Throw from the plant by golly NC R isn't only a good place to work it's it's a way of life for that matter life for all of us is richer today than it was even 25 years ago we are living longer but better yet our years are Fuller we have more things to do but strangely enough we have more time to do them that is because the whole Temple of our existence has been speeded up we have more time to enjoy Pleasant places n [Music] yes sir a very pleasant highly satisfactory [Music] life right within the family our people have every chance to upgrade themselves our NCR evening schools the first of their kind have been running for more than 50 years nor do we consider that our responsibility ends at the factory gate every week in the year several thousand Dayton children swarmed to the Saturday morning free movies and other entertainment of the auditorium every boy and girl in Dayton that graduates from high school gets his or her diploma on the same NCR stage in the selling in to we have made the same solid Advance the company realizing the need for a quiet place where salesman could be trained a site was selected an Old Sugar Camp overlooking the factory first a tent city then Colonel Deeds took a long look ahead he replaced the tents with permanent classrooms assembly and dining Halls Cottage dormitories and recreational [Music] facilities the beautiful campus spreads over the Shaded Breeze swept nles overlooking Old River and of course the parent plant today it is more than a Sal school it is a famous School of American Business in whatever way our lives are touched by the business World Business Machines largely National machines speed up the millions of transactions take shopping there would be no giant supermarkets as we know them today were it not for the fast all Duty checkout machines developed by NCR suppose some weird impossible Calamity struck us the way they do it in science [Music] fiction and suddenly every National checkout register in the world would vanish Into Thin Air can you imagine what would happen well I I hope you won't mind waiting [Applause] what's the matter up there she's slow today that'll be479 oh just a minute I forgot the tax oh dear isn't this awful I like to take my time looking around but when I get ready to go I want to get out of here thank you and then when we call off the evil [Music] eye well thank goodness 25 34 makes 50 now life Picks Up Tempo again well that's more like it [Music] 24 25 24 it would be the same in a payroll department of any size at all if they suddenly had to go back to the old methods instead of a national payroll machine that does all the tabulating and calculating for her in a flash now she has to look up and figure out each paycheck separately well Betty how are we coming are you going to have the payroll up by noon noon I'll be lucky if I get it out this week what well look time cards worksheets regular earnings overtime pay Shi premiums bonuses and the dedu Social Security withholding tax state and federal and who has hospitalization and Group insurance and union dues and and and annuities oh and there's Community chest and government bonds no two checks are alike and you're asking me but we've to get them today how much more help do you need well maybe with five more girls I could get it out by tomorrow night tomorrow night what tomorrow night now we'll have it out by noon well that's better yes I think most anyone would agree that's better it's better in every type of accounting it's better for getting out your telephone Gas and Water and Electric bills whether it's the cash register that records retail sales in all kinds of stores or the plain adding machine or the accounting machines that are keeping up with the increasing needs and complexities of modern business each is the most complete machine for the job to be done built to give all the right answers all the time [Music] our Engineers have a torture room where they hook up machines to operate automatically 24 hours a day year in and year out to see if they can catch them in a mistake or wear them [Music] out on a single machine receipts have been printed figures have been itemized carriages have been thrown back and forth indicators have popped up 10 to 20 million [Music] times Keys have been punched drawers have been jerked in and out name your torture we have [Music] it got all night H oh is that time already so it is got a letter from the kid today you did yes he's on leave in a place called abidan look what he says Dear Dad guess what I was out giving this old Persian town the once over when I came to one of those rug stalls oh excuse me these people call all Americans Johnny Johnny how much how much is that uh [Music] 40 I'll give you 10 bucks b okay no okay okay 10 bucks T hey National Cash Register back home I helped make these babies your loving son Don well that's a good one well don't work too late oh I won't I'm leaving now glad the boy's all right so am I good night good night [Music] it takes something like that to make a fellow realize far as this company's concerned We Are One World wherever you may go to the farthest corners of the Earth One Thing American you are sure to find the national cash [Music] register Paris Berlin London Rio canbera Saskatoon Hong Kong Bombay Singapore Istanbul Bangkok Johannesburg to most people they're just far away places with strange sounding names but to us their nextd door neighbors makes you stop and think doesn't it all over the world they're adopting American Products we're getting together that much anyway at least that's one step in the right direction isn't it [Applause] a [Applause]