ELLIOTT COMPUTER ACHIEVES SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS IN STEELWORKSBy agreement with Samuel Fox & Co. Ltd., Elliott Automation announces that the indications are that the Elliott Electronic computer control of the billet cut-up line at Samuel Fox's steelworks at Stocksbridge, which has now been in use for six months, is fulfilling the expectations of the Management.The installation is the first application of an electronic digital computer to an actual steel process anywhere in the world and the first such application to any industrial process in the United Kingdom. At the time the installation was announced, it was said that significant cost savings were expected as a result of reduced wastage in the cut billets.It can now be said that the evidence so far available does show worthwhile savings in material yield.
Ref. 8690 A white hot stainless steel billet passing through the mill at Samuel Fox & Company's steelworks where the Elliott computer control of the cut-up line is installed. This is the first installation of an electronic digital computer for the control of an actual steelworks process anywhere in the world and the first such application to any industrial process in the United Kingdom. The installation is said to be fulfilling the expectations made of it.Acknowledgement Photograph by courtesy of Samuel Fox & Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of the United Steel Companies Limited.For further information and copies of photograph:- John Geddes, 91/Bh
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| The Panellit 609 was based on the Elliott 803 computer.
You'll see lots of info. on the 802/803 machines at the appropriate pages (E3) of: http://www.ourcomputerheritage.org/wp/ For your info., I've extracted a few items of interest from these web pages, plus a couple of paras from Chapter 4 of my draft book. All this stuff is appended below. Let me know if you need more info. I'd be interested to see more of your 609 stuff, and especially the: > ...interesting press release date 30/11/61 detailing the "first > application of an > electronic digital computer to an actual steel process anywhere in > the world". Regards, Simon. _________________________________________ Professor Simon Lavington, Lemon Tree Cottage, High Street, Sproughton, Suffolk, IP8 3AH. 01473 748478. lavis@essex.ac.uk http://cswww.essex.ac.uk/staff/lavington.htm ________________________________________ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Info. extracted from the CCS Pilot Study and from Chap. 4 of the forthcoming book 'Moving Targets' by Simon Lavington. The 800 series machines were sold direct by Elliott's Computing Division for scientific/engineering applications, via NCR Ltd. for commercial data-processing applications, and by Elliott's Process Automation Division for incorporation in their 609 and ARCH systems. The majority of installed computers were in fact the 803B variant.... In parallel with the success of the 800 series, Borehamwood had been refining its long-held belief in the need for better industrial control systems and process automation. The way ahead seemed to lie in the development of a hierarchy of control equipment, comprising customised selections of modules ranging from simple analogue computing elements to complete general-purpose digital computers. Accordingly, in September 1959 Elliott Brothers approached NRDC for help in developing what was to become known as ARCH: the Articulated Control Hierarchy. In November 1959 NRDC agreed to make available up to £150,000 for one half of the cost of the ARCH project. The technical details of ARCH and the incorporation of 800 series and 900 series computers in ARCH systems are covered in more detail in Chapter **. The purpose of mentioning the project here is to round off the account of how NRDC interacted with Elliott Brothers and Elliott Automation during the 1950s and 1960s. ARCH was launched at a Press Conference held at the Savoy Hotel, London, on 7th May 1962. The first public demonstration of ARCH was at the Instruments, Electronics & Automation Exhibition at Olympia, London, from 28th May to 2nd June 1962.... 803B The enhanced 803A, first working in 1960. The 803B employed more parallel paths (separate registers) internally instead of the bit-stream approach, and had hardware floating-point. The majority of '803s' sold would have been 803Bs. The selling price (1960 values) was £29,000. The 803B was said to have been "an immediate success. It was small and simple and completely transistorised. As a result, the power consumption of the basic machine was only 3.6KW. The transistor/core logic proved extremely reliable" (ref. 8). A total of 211 of the 803 systems (including 803A, 803B, and the ARCH 8000 and Panellit 609 Process Control variants) were delivered between 1960 and 1966. The Elliott Panellit 609 process-control computer was based variously on the 802 or 803 computer (see refs. 6 and 13). The Elliott ARCH 8000 (Articulated Computing Hierarchy) process-control computer was based on the 803. The 803's instruction set is identical in arrangement, except that in the 803 Group 6 instructions are (a) floating-point arithmetic operations, and (b) a short divide and a hardware square-root instruction. The latter were specifically incorporated for process control applications (ARCH systems). For general scientific and commercial applications they were disabled. 66 n DIVSH divide acc by operand, placing 13-digit quotient in acc. (NB - only for Process Control applications). 67 - SQRT extract square root of acc, placing 13-digit root in acc. (NB - only for Process Control applics). Some 803/ARCH/609 installations of interesr are as follows (* an asterisk indicates on-line control): 1960: Samuel Fox & Co. Ltd. * Billet cut-up optimisation 1961: Richard Thomas & Baldwins Ltd. Operational research in steel making. 1962: 803: 2 computers: Richard Thomas & Baldwins (Spencer Wks) * Scheduling & slabbing mill control. Richard Thomas & Baldwins Ltd. Systems development. 1963: 803: United Steel Co. Ltd. Operational research. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + |
| Simon, Ed. Some more information on the Panellit 609/Elliott 803. The Elliott Process Control Computer at Stocksbridge This computer was used to optimise steel bar/biller cutting at Samual Fox & Co, Stocksbridge, near Sheffield in South Yorkshire. The works is still there as Corus Engineering Steels, Stocksbridge. This was a simple application of process control to optimise the length of bar cut so as to maximise yield. I guess it drew upon earlier research at the British Iron and Steel Research Association. The paper on it shows annual savings from yield gains more than outweighed the total initial cost of the scheme - including software, implying a very rapid payback on the initial investment in equipment and programming. The key paper is: R.H. Baulk, R.J. Jakeways and K.C. Padley, “Experiences with an on-line process control computer in a steel works”, in Instrument Society of America, Digital Computer Applications to Process Control, New York: Plenum Press, 1965, pp.207-232 I can easily copy this if either of you want it. There are duplicate copies of the volume in one of our University Libraries. I worked for Corus Engineering Steels as a consultant for 12 years on a completely different issue so it should be possible to track down some early photos. |
