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Installing Electronic Procedures—A Progress Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

J. J. Finelli
J. J. Finelli
Affiliation:
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York
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Extract

It is now June 1959—only eight years after the first magnetic tape computer was put to work in the U.S. Bureau of the Census. But it was not until mid-1954 that the appropriate auxiliary machines needed to complement this computer became available. In a very real sense, magnetic tape data processing facilities suitable for business operations are only five years old at this time.

Yet, in so short a time, possibly 300 or more tape-operated data processing systems have already been installed in the United States. A great deal has been written and said regarding the use of this equipment and its impact on current practices. There is much yet to be said. As we come to grips with the immediate and difficult job of putting it to work we can be encouraged by the very substantial progress already achieved by both manufacturers and users. In just a few years, the initial approach to computers has changed so much that the key question ‘Can electronic computers be relied upon?’ has become for many ‘Which one should I get?’

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 86 , Issue 2 , September 1960 , pp. 161 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1960

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References

page 162 note * In the reports of the Society of Actuaries' Committee on New Recording Means and Computing Devices.

page 162 note † Difficult but necessary with clerical organization if one is to achieve the economies possible from specialization.

page 163 note * We share the distinction of being first users with General Electric, which began using magnetic tape data processing equipment at about the same time as we did.

page 163 note † See ‘A Report on the Electronic Activities of a large Life Insurance Company’ Transactions of the Fifteenth International Congress of Actuaries, Vol. I.

page 164 note * A Consolidated Functions Plan (see Appendix II) is a plan for servicing insurance policies designed for most effective application of electronic equipment.

page 165 note * This one was regarded initially as an Interim project—but it can be more appropriately classified as one of the Stage-setting projects for present purposes.

page 169 note * The annual dividends payable vary by classification of the risk, by age and year of policy issue, by plan of insurance, by amount of insurance, and by the various kinds of supplementary benefits associated with an Ordinary policy.

page 179 note * Vol. III, Transactions of the Fifteenth International Congress of Actuaries.

page 184 note * Appendix III of the June 1955 report by the Society of Actuaries Committee on New Recording Means and Computing Devices contains a comparison of procedures for handling a death claim and indicates the large reduction in data traffic likely to evolve under a magnetic tape system.

page 186 note * Most of these have already been published. See section II, volume III, of the Transactions of the Fifteenth International Congress of Actuaries.

page 193 note * Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning by Dr G. Polya, Princeton University Press.

page 207 note * Automation for Senior Officers, University of Chicago, November 1955.Google ScholarPubMed

page 210 note * A computer installation set up by a group of fire insurance companies in Hartford, Connecticut, for common use of a large-scale computer.