BUSINESS AUTOMATION and MILITARY ELECTRONICS

The problem confronting many company managements today in deciding what course to follow in applying the new techniques of automation and data processing is similar to the problem faced in recent years by the leaders of our military organizations in arranging for efficient application of the same powerful tools of electronics to the art of war.

At Ramo-Wooldridge the difficult demands of major military systems responsibility have been met successfully by the placing of heavy dependence upon teams of unusually well-qualified, mature and experienced scientists, operational procedures experts, and engineers. These teams deal with the technical and non-technical portions of a project as inseparable and interrelated aspects of a single problem.

PLATO was a pretty amazing computer system for it’s day. Here is a blurb from the wikipedia entry:

…the last production PLATO system was turned off in 2006, PLATO nevertheless pioneered key concepts such as online forums and message boards, online testing, email, chat rooms, picture languages, instant messaging, remote screen sharing, and multiplayer online games…

“Control Data PLATO increased our training efficency 167%”

“PLATO computer-based education will save Merrell-National over 12,000 classroom hours on just one drug product training program alone.”
Gary J. Wilson, Sales Training Manager
Merrell-National Laboratories Division of Richardson-Merrell Inc.

“Today’s modern ethical drugs demand sales people who are better informed, more technically oriented and better able to relate vital product information to help doctors do a better job. To meet the challenge, Merrell-National Laboratories has initiated a program to improve the quality of pharmaceutical representative training.