# Phoenix, Arizona: A Thriving Metropolis of the Future
Phoenix, Arizona, a bustling metropolis of nearly half a million people, is one of America's fastest-growing cities. The city reflects exciting concepts of today and tomorrow, and the overall business climate in Phoenix is excellent. The city offers a good source of labor and encourages good labor-management relations. It is a great place to live and work, and in recent years, some of the nation's industrial leaders have established manufacturing plants here.
## Electronics Industry Growth
A significant trend in Phoenix's industrial growth has been the growth of the electronics industry. The computer department of General Electric is located on a 160-acre site in the Deer Valley Industrial Complex north of the city. Over 2,300 men and women are employed by the computer department, occupying a total area of over 260,000 square feet. At present, the manufacturing area is being expanded to more than twice its size.
## The Manufacture of Computers
The manufacture of computers is a complex process that takes more than 150,000 electrical connections and over 60,000 individual parts. Because of the magnitude of detail, the design and planning of manufacturing techniques have become a job for the computer itself. Many of General Electric's manufacturing processes are computer-designed and computer-controlled.
## Quality Control
It takes the products of almost 3,500 suppliers to furnish the raw materials for the manufacture of a computer. The company policy is to buy everything possible from local vendors where quality, price, and service are competitive. Quality control begins immediately, and every item is tested for strict adherence to specifications.
## Computer Wiring
The computers' racks are placed on the production line, and mechanical assembly begins. Modular card holder fixtures are assembled with the aid of devices like a Jake, which is used throughout manufacturing to eliminate awkward and tedious operations. Foreigners are a major and vital part of the computer, and to assure a wire connection of the highest quality, a solderless wire-wrapped connection is used. Punch paper tape is used to control the wiring list display. The operator reads the wire termination points, makes the connection, and presses a switch that advances the display to the next point.
## Back Panel Wiring
Back panels require hundreds of drilled holes, drilled to exact specifications and in many different patterns. The General Electric Mark II controller is used to control the actions of the Birdmaster drill. The pattern to be drilled is computer-determined, and the hole location information is on punched paper tape. Back panels combine wiring and printed wiring in the most efficient combination. The back panel system of wiring requires that connections be made to printed wiring boards.
## Silk Screening and Quality Assurance
Silk screening is used extensively on printed wiring boards. This machine maintains accurate placement of the screen on the printed wiring board. Solder resist is being applied to the board, and the green-colored resist will prevent solder from adhering, while the bare terminal points will be selectively soldered. Each computer uses thousands of diodes, and maximum reliability is achieved by testing each diode prior to assembly. The diodes are purchased in reels that are fed to an automatic tester at the rate of one per second. If one should be found defective, it is automatically cut out of the reel.
## Conclusion
Phoenix, Arizona, is a thriving metropolis of the future, with a strong focus on the electronics industry. General Electric's computer department is pioneering many new applications for the latest tool of progress: electronic solid-state computers. The manufacture of computers is a complex process that involves a vast network of suppliers, computer-designed and computer-controlled manufacturing processes, and rigorous quality control measures. The result is a higher quality product that reflects the exciting concepts of today and tomorrow.
# The Evolution of Automated Production in Manufacturing
## Introduction
Automated production methods have been introduced to increase productivity and maintain technological leadership in manufacturing. General Electric has implemented these methods in their advanced manufacturing engineering laboratory, where various assembly and manufacturing equipment are developed, tested and analyzed to enhance production efficiency.
## The Printed Wiring Board Assembly Line
Pre-cut and pre-formed components are now ready to assemble into printed wiring boards, resulting in longer life and greater reliability. Operators are assigned to insert a certain number of components in the board and pass it down the assembly line. The boards are pre-marked to show the location and direction of electrical flow, which assures a high degree of accuracy. The soldered joint is a critical factor in the reliability of printed wiring boards, and the computer department has completely mechanized the soldering operation for highest reliability.
## Testing and Calibration
The finished boards undergo analytical testing, including functional testing, to simulate actual operating conditions. All test units used in manufacturing are themselves checked periodically, and a calibration laboratory is maintained by quality control to keep all test instruments calibrated to extremely close manufacturing tolerances.
## Memory Portion of a General Electric Computer
The memory portion of a General Electric computer contains 170,000 tiny cores threaded on matrices, which store the information fed to the computer. A vibrator jig is used in place of manually aligning the individual cores for threading. The core memory matrix is then tested automatically, and each core is individually tested to ensure that the readout is within specifications.
## Buffer and Control Devices
Computers also require small memory devices to allow the high-speed electronic portion to work with a low-speed mechanical unit. The buffer consists of many cores, each wrapped with several turns of wire, and requires manual dexterity and concentration. The wiring of the control device requires a high degree of skill and concentration, as it is the nerve center of the computer.
## Final Assembly and Testing
The computer is now in the final stages of assembly, and all major sub-assemblies are installed and wired. The computer is then ready for final testing, which can be done with ease using a controller selector. The General Electric high-speed printer, which can fit a thousand lines per minute, and the high-speed document handler, which can sort and read into the computer documents printed with magnetic ink characters, are used for testing. Once testing is completed, the computer is prepared for shipment.
The evolution toward automation is tied closely to products and methods such as these. General Electric has a dynamic program for increasing productivity and maintaining technological leadership in the manufacture of computers. With its tremendous resources, General Electric is continuing to invest in the development of new manufacturing techniques that will enhance production efficiency, including mechanized and automated component welding equipment and new chemical processes.