The Electronic Document & Me

Ford Has a Better Idea or -

This is Bad Because It Wasn’t His Idea

One day in 1982 or ’83 I received a call from a guy who said he was a vice president of IT for Ford Motor Company.

He’d heard about Racal-Telesystems (Ford was a big user of Racal-Milgo modems) and was curious to know if we could help them. We talked for a while and he explained their problem. It seemed that like most other large organizations, Ford had all sorts of different types of word processing systems throughout their worldwide operations.

In some cases, it was due to the differing features and capabilities the various systems offered that matched well with the requirements of different departments. So for example, (and this is from memory so it might not be exactly true) legal had NBIs and Xerox 860s, manufacturing had various IBM systems including Displaywriters and 5520s (soon to be my all-time favorite), while others had things like CPT, WANG, Lanier, etc.

In other cases, it was geographically determined. Operations in Europe – The Netherlands, Germany, etc. – had Philps MICOM while the folks at Ford of Japan had something else.

The problem of course arose when they tried sharing documents that had been created on one type of system with other locations or departments that had a different system. Remember – this was at a time when companies like Ford were just beginning to try to establish global unified management.

After I explained our approach and how we might help he asked me if I’d be willing to come to Dearborn and meet with his team and with another vendor. After learning a bit more I agreed to the meeting.

A few weeks later I was at Ford HQ on The American Road in Dearborn, MI. I was ushered into a conference room where I met the IT VP, some of his staff and a number of people from a company called Wiltek of Wilton, CT. Wiltek as I learned, managed Ford’s global data communications systems.

Without going into too much detail it was an extremely interesting and productive meeting. The group discussed Ford’s situation in detail and began mapping out possible solutions. While the technical issues were challenging, they were fairly straight forward. The real challenge (no surprise here) was in the implementation of the process and procedures.

There were a number of subsequent meetings both in Dearborn and at Telesystems’ HQ in Chicago's Wrigley Building during which the solution was mapped out.

What we envisioned was a system that would allow documents typed on every type of word processing system Ford had to be transmitted to any other type of word processing system. Ford and Wiltek wanted the system to be centralized for better management and maintenance at Wiltek’s operations in Connecticut. The system that was eventually implemented included several Racal-Telesystems Protocol and Code Converters installed in racks and (this is based on memory so might not be completely accurate) connected to a DEC VAX computer (you can google this if you’re curious). Since the internet was more than ten years in the future, the system was connected to the outside world via Racal-Milgo modems.

Documents that originated on word processing systems would be sent to the Wiltek location via the system’s native format, converted through a Telesystems box to Racal Normal Form (RNF) and passed to the VAX for storage. Then at a specific time the RNF file would be passed back through a Telesystems box and transmitted to the receiving word processor’s native format. Remember – the systems involved numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands scattered around the world in almost every time zone. So Wiltek developed the software to act as the traffic cop for the whole thing.

But ultimately it all depended on people – the people who actually used the word processing systems. You see, none of the systems involved had any sort of automated send or receive capability. In fact, most could not send or receive a file in background. You couldn’t send a file while typing a letter for example. So, you had to stop what you were doing and set up a ‘send’. Or you had to know when you were going to receive a file, stop what you were doing and set up the system to receive. All very clunky by today’s standards but light years ahead of what people had been doing just a few years earlier.

So, a schedule was developed that would allow the sending and receiving of documents in a timely, organized manner. It worked like this. At specific times during the work day operators of a given type of word processor – let’s use IBM Displaywriters for example – would send any files they had to the system at Wiltek. This required not only stopping any other work during transmission, it required using a modem and ‘dataset’ phone to make the connection. Then, at another specific time those operators would set up to receive documents. The same thing happened around the world for Xerox 860 users, WANG users, NBI users, CPT, MICOM, et. al. Of course, time zones were taken into consideration.

It all sounds pretty chaotic by current standards but the thing is, it worked. And after a few months experience with the system Ford was thrilled with the results.

So, like any reasonable sales and marketing person I asked if we could do a case study or article on the project. And the answer from Ford was a resounding “Yes!” So I contacted an industry magazine – probably Datamation or Information Systems News – I don’t remember which – and talked with them about the possibility of publishing an article.

They were very interested so I wrote it and passed it to my contacts at Ford for approval from their legal department. This took over a month but when it came back they’d made very few if any changes and they even sent a photograph of the Ford team that had worked on the project for inclusion with the article. Clearly Ford was happy and very interested in letting the world know about their accomplishment.

I then sent the article along with Ford’s approval to Racal-Milgo HQ in Florida. It was like tossing it into a black hole. I waited several weeks and finally called a colleague in the marketing department. I asked him if they’d seen the article. He told me they had. I waited for more and when none came I asked if it was going to be approved. He said no. I waited again and when nothing else was said I asked what the problem was. I think I added that Ford was clearly happy with the work we’d done and was interested in having the article published. 

He sounded exasperated. He said, “Scott, you don’t seem to understand how things work around here. You know XXXXXX (the VP of Marketing whose name I’ve forgotten) “runs the show here right?” I said I knew that. “And he only approves things that are his idea. And this is bad because it wasn’t his idea”. It became clear his exasperation wasn’t with me. “I have a desk drawer full of ideas but I won’t even bother trying to get them approved anymore. It just isn’t worth it.”

And there it was. My thoughts at the time revolved around feeling sorry for the people who worked there. I didn’t (and still don’t) understand why anyone would choose to stay in a situation like that. To this day, I don’t understand why a company that never did much of it had a Vice President of marketing.

My real discomfort came when I had to explain to Ford why the article wouldn’t be published. I didn’t sugar coat it – I told them what I’d been told. I’m not sure if Ford’s relationship with Milgo was at all affected although when you consider what happened to Milgo over the next few years – a classic tale of not keeping up with technology and going into a death spiral – you have to wonder.

Bye-the-way, two people I worked with on the project and came to have tremendous respect for were John Nepiuk of Ford and Spencer Pooley of Wiltek. John and Spence are both retired. Working with them was truly an honor.