Any mechanical aid which makes it possible to extract records and then analyse them rapidly and economically must command the serious attention of actuaries and attract increasing interest from those intimately connected with progress and development in Industry or Commerce. Powers machines are one of the most important of these mechanical aids and are readily adaptable to the business of Life Assurance. Invented in America, they have been improved and placed on the market in this country by the Accounting and Tabulating Corporation of Great Britain.

The rationale of the Powers System is that many particulars relative to a given contract, such as a policy, may be placed on permanent record by means of punching holes in a card. Then such punched cards can, by entirely mechanical processes, be sorted and duplicated and the information contained thereon tabulated and cast; as a result of which we may collect our desired information in a very much more speedy, economical and efficient manner than was possible under the old clerical system.