CTEC

 

The Central Technical Education Centre at Spring Valley Road, Miamisburg was opened in 1970 to provide technical education to both Domestic and International Engineers.  A special edition of the NCR International News and  a Students’ brochure describe the facilities in detail

The Central Technical Education Centre International News 1970

Optimum Service to Users is Theme of New NCR Technical Education Center.

The Central Technical Education Centre International News 1970

Optimum Service to Users is Theme of New NCR Technical Education Center.

"No product is any better than the service behind it." Throughout the 86-year history of the Company this motto has served as the basis for continued and intensive develop­ment and educational activities for NCR Technical Service personnel. With the ever growing complexity and variety of NCR products, the Company recognizes that even the best salesman cannot sell our equipment of high quality to the most interested customer unless he, the customer, has the assurance that his installation is backed up by efficient, prompt, and reliable service. Good service breeds customer satisfaction which, in turn, leads to increased sales. The success of Technical Ser­vices depends on the selection, education and growth of its man­power. Human resources are the most valuable asset of Technical Services. Although it is obvious that through the extensive educa­tional program technical person­nel acquire skills and knowledge, it is not so obvious that these skills and knowledge are a form of capi­tal that is part of a deliberate and well-calculated investment which has grown at a faster rate than in­vestments in conventional assets. This idea is best reflected in Mr. Laing's statement: "In the future, the most important thing we'll be marketing. will be MANPOWER.
That means our product and our best investment will be PEOPLE."
The most striking characteristic of our time is profound change. To effectively deal with today's technological changes in order to meet tomorrow's tasks, NCR pro­vides to its technical personnel the most modern and well-equipped educational facilities. The new NCR Technical Education Center in Dayton, located about 12 kilo­meters south of the main factory complex, is a logical outgrowth of this increased emphasis on the education of technical service per­sonnel. The Center includes the new International facilities for technical education on the NCR Century 100 and 200 systems, their peripherals, online systems and new EDP products.

The Central Technical Education Centre International News 1970

 

Physical facilities/resources
The new $8 million Technical Education Center is one of the largest and most comprehensive facilities of its kind in the business equipment industry. The campus-style "service university," as can be seen from the illustration above at right, consists of six main build­ings plus "motel" units for resident students. It is capable of serving more than 1,200 students through highly advanced educational tech­niques. Typical of the advanced teaching techniques being em­ployed is a central complex hous­ing all types of NCR computers and ringed by a perimeter of class­rooms. Training equipment in­cludes 35 computer systems plus 1,000 other machines to provide "hands-on" training for students. The International Center is lo­cated on the third floor of build­ing "C" and consists of personnel offices, a conference room,

ten classrooms and three systems rooms: one with five NCR Cen­tury 100 systems, another with a 100 system and various free-stand­ing peripherals, and the last, with a 200 online system. The gross as­set value of the equipment in the International Center is in the re­gion of 3/4 million dollars. The food service facilities, in­cluding cafeteria and dining room, are located in building 'T," and are shared by Domestic and Inter­national. Sixty of the "motel" units are reserved for use by the International Division students.

This section has reading and rec­reation rooms, including billiards, ping-pong and card playing facili­ties

 

The operations of the Interna­tional Center are under the management of Dennis J. Palmer, who is a native of South Africa. This Center comes under the scope of the Technical Education Depart­ment of which Fred Scheuer is Di­rector.
In Mr. Palmer's words, "The basic function of the school, be­sides providing technical training in electronic equipment to mem­bers of the International Division, is to provide guidance and support to all International schools in the conduct of technically associated instructional programs. These are mainly to promote effective world­wide instruction in the service and maintenance of electronic data processing systems and other products marketed by the cor­poration. These programs include a definition of service strategies, training philosophies, develop­ment and validation of course syl­labi, on-the-job training programs and instructor development and upgrading on the latest technolog­ical innovations. We also have the capacity to provide library and in­formation services to other schools in the International Division."
In regard to the average train­ing time of students attending the school, Mr. Palmer said: "The shortest course we teach is three days on the Class 18 Calculator. This, of course, only qualifies the technician to repair certain as­pects of this machine. The longest training is in the region of 36 weeks. This course includes train­ing on the full NCR Century line. The training on the NCR Century is divided in three phases. The first phase is 17

 

weeks and comprises the basic NCR Century 100 sys­tem. From there, the student can go on to the peripherals of the NCR Century which take another six weeks and then to the 200, which lasts seven weeks. Also, there are other peripheral units which generally take less than three weeks each."
The Technical Education in the International Center is divided into three principal sections —NCR Century 100 and peripheral units training, under the direction of Don Crissinger; NCR Century 200 and online equipment train­ing, under Alfredo Baldessari, and training on new EDP products, under Hubert Wudke. The in­struction in all of these sections takes place in both English and Spanish.
The operations of the 100 and 200 systems section are essentially similar, said Mr. Baldessari, who is a native of Argentina and one of several instructors who speak both English and Spanish. "My section," said Mr. Baldessari, "deals specifically with the NCR Century 200 and associated pe­ripherals, including online equip­ment, which consists of the 621 multiplexor, the 438 controller and the 42 online. The training is di­vided into two phases: theory and practice on the equipment. About 57% of the time is spent on the hardware; this means working with the machine, and, the rest of the time on theory.

The operations of the Interna­tional Center are under the management of Dennis J. Palmer, who is a native of South Africa. This Center comes under the scope of the Technical Education Depart­ment of which Fred Scheuer is Di­rector.
In Mr. Palmer's words, "The basic function of the school, be­sides providing technical training in electronic equipment to mem­bers of the International Division, is to provide guidance and support to all International schools in the conduct of technically associated instructional programs. These are mainly to promote effective world­wide instruction in the service and maintenance of electronic data processing systems and other products marketed by the cor­poration. These programs include a definition of service strategies, training philosophies, develop­ment and validation of course syl­labi, on-the-job training programs and instructor development and upgrading on the latest technolog­ical innovations. We also have the capacity to provide library and in­formation services to other schools in the International Division."
In regard to the average train­ing time of students attending the school, Mr. Palmer said: "The shortest course we teach is three days on the Class 18 Calculator. This, of course, only qualifies the technician to repair certain as­pects of this machine. The longest training is in the region of 36 weeks. This course includes train­ing on the full NCR Century line. 

The training on the NCR Century is divided in three phases. The first phase is 17 weeks and comprises the basic NCR Century 100 sys­tem. From there, the student can go on to the peripherals of the NCR Century which take another six weeks and then to the 200, which lasts seven weeks. Also, there are other peripheral units which generally take less than three weeks each."
The Technical Education in the International Center is divided into three principal sections —NCR Century 100 and peripheral units training, under the direction of Don Crissinger; NCR Century 200 and online equipment train­ing, under Alfredo Baldessari, and training on new EDP products, under Hubert Wudke. The in­struction in all of these sections takes place in both English and Spanish.
The operations of the 100 and 200 systems section are essentially similar, said Mr. Baldessari, who is a native of Argentina and one of several instructors who speak both English and Spanish. "My section," said Mr. Baldessari, "deals specifically with the NCR Century 200 and associated pe­ripherals, including online equip­ment, which consists of the 621 multiplexor, the 438 controller and the 42 online. The training is di­vided into two phases: theory and practice on the equipment. About 57% of the time is spent on the hardware; this means working with the machine, and, the rest of the time on theory.

The students are first sent to the systems room in order to familiarize themselves with the use of the software and the diagnostic routines associated with the system. After that, we start working on the adjustments of the specific units — including both mechanical and electronic adjustments, especially in periph­erals. Later, we start them on troubleshooting, in other words, the techniques of finding and re­pairing malfunctions." (Later in this article we will enter into more detail regarding this important phase of the training.) "In the on­line portion of the course, we also have a system installed in such a way that we can simulate perfect­ly the operation of the system in the field. We have telephone lines going from the 42 and the 438 and we send the information coming out from the subset through the telephone lines to the system. We have the input equipment in dif­ferent rooms in order to convey to the students the idea of a real in­stallation, where the data captur­ing equipment is located away from the central computer."
In regard to the new EDP prod­ucts training section, under Mr. Wudke, he said: "The main func­tion of my section is to generate new courses for equipment to be released in the future. For exam­ple, Mike Walter, one of our in­structors in Hawthorne who is in charge of coordinating the activi­ties of the International Center with our Data Processing Division, is working at present on a train­ing course of a more powerful member of the NCR Century fam­ily. 

 
 
 

This training is scheduled to start early next year. Besides this project, we are working at present on the electronic terminal pro­gram which includes the Class 260, 270 and 280. Because of the great market potential for these products we plan to decentralize this training. It is therefore our function to structure a training program, teach instructors of vari­ous International schools and as­sist them in establishing training facilities at the local level.
"We also work on smaller mem­bers of the NCR Century line, which are likewise projected For 1971. 

As far as new equipment is concerned, there is only one other project left to mention—an elec­tronic accounting machine. These are the basic ongoing activities we have right now in the new prod­ucts area. 

"Another function we have," continued Mr. Wudke, "is to pro­vide fundamental courses to pre­pare newly employed personnel for EDP service work. We have three basic courses, one of them already in operation and two in development. The first one covers basic computer concepts or BCC. Two courses are presently under development.They deal with Ba­sic Mechanical Concepts or BMC, and with Data Communication Concepts or DCC. Again, because of the emphasis which NCR is giv­ing to the new online and terminal units, which all work over tele­phone lines, we believe that it is necessary to prepare NCR techni­cians on telephone communication concepts. Here, we're not talking about equipment as such, but what is going on in the telephone line. How is data transmitted over tele­phone lines.

What is the technical language used by telephone com­pany personnel? What problems are involved? What measuring techniques are available? In other words, just concepts. The first class on data communication con­cepts will be conducted by the middle of August of this year."

 

In order to obtain more infor­mation on the liaison job between Hawthorne and the International Technical Education Center, our reporter talked with Mike Walter, who, as mentioned before, is re­sponsible for this activity.

 
 
 

Mr. Walter told us: "The primary pur­pose of my job is to supply the school with up-to-date informa­tion on new machines that are being manufactured in Haw­thorne, on changes to existing ma­chines, and, to prepare lesson plans on these machines. My main function at the moment is develop­ing a course for the new large-scale computer which is being manufactured by NCR. To struc­ture this course, which is a con­tinuation of the NCR Century concept, will take another six to nine months. At the same time, there are other projects coming up from time to time which de­mand my attention. For example, we recently developed in Haw­thorne a new high-speed Card Punch. This equipment has to be researched and a training package on it made up for the school here as well as for the other Regional Schools.
"Another phase of my activities is related with technical represen­tatives who come out of this school and need to have some specialized training in Hawthorne or at the new plant in Rancho Bernardo. 

I have to schedule their activities so that they acquire practical expe­rience that is essential for their future tasks in the field. This as­sures that the user receives the best installation and maintenance service possible."
As previously mentioned, a phase which receives very special attention is the actual training on the equipment itself. German Cas­tro, who joined the Company in Colombia in 1954 and has worked for NCR organizations in Panama, El Salvador, and the Technical Education Center in Puerto Rico, is Education Hardware Specialist in the International Center. Re­ferring to this particular phase of the training, Mr. Castro said: "We consider that the training on the equipment itself is the most impor­tant part of the course since this is the activity in which the students are engaged when they return to their respective countries. The knowledge and experience they acquire here is what they will ap­ply when they install and render service to a system. 

 

There are two phases of training on the equip­ment. In the first, the students work with programs and familiar­ize themselves with the operation of the machine. In the other, they become acquainted with the in­ternal functions of the equipment and carry out troubleshooting. Here, we put "bugs" in the ma­chine to simulate conditions of malfunctions which occur in field installations and we ask the stu­dents to analyze these problems. In the first part of the course, we teach them troubleshooting tech­niques. For example, we show them how to display certain areas of the memory, how to use and synchronize certain functions in order to determine through ana­lyzing oscilloscope displays wheth­er specific modules are operating correctly or not.

"In the final part of the course, the students are capable of devel­oping their own techniques and can thus repair the equipment in minimum time. That is the objec­tive we pursue. Besides, we famil­iarize them with all the documen­tation. The success of repairing these machines in the shortest pos­sible time lies in the competencyof utilizing the documentation as reference material. If they have a problem in a certain area, they need to know on which microfiche to find the appropriate diagnostic routine; where to find the infor­mation required."
Several students interviewed ex­pressed great enthusiasm for the new International Technical Edu­cation facilities. One of them who had just completed training on the complete NCR Century line, said: "This new training facility offers a great opportunity to learn fully any equipment studied due to the great quantity of equipment and educational material available. Above all," he said, "you learn how to handle the information you receive."

Another student offered the thought that the new education center provided excellent facilities for students to gain first-hand ex­perience in maintenance proce­dures. "Nevertheless," he contin­ued, "more and more a greater degree of personal initiative, dedi­cation and experience outside of school is needed in order to ac­quire the level of knowledge nec­essary to keep a customer's system running properly."

 
 
 

According to H. G. Stauffer, Assistant Vice President, Interna­tional Technical Service Division: "The new NCR Technical Edu­cation Center and integral In­ternational facility reflect the Company's commitment toward providing the best possible tech­nical education to its service per­sonnel in order to insure that NCR systems continue to provide users the benefits for which they were originally installed.”

 

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Student Brochure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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School Photographs  -  Slide Show

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The following article appeared in the November/December edition of the NCR World magazine.

NCR World - Article