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~SHAREE
SHARE SESSION REPORT

61 M377/C313 PC in an IC Environment 375
SHARE NO. SESSION NO. SESSION TITLE ATTENDANCE PERSONAL COMPUTER INFORMATION CENTER
Information Center & Integrated Ted Macchiarella MDC by
PC Project BURTON G. SNITZ
IBM CORPORATION
PROJECT SESSION CHAIRMAN INST. CODE 5600 COTTLE ROAD
Metro Dade County, 5680 SW 87th Ave., Miami,FL 33173 (305) 596-8204 SAN JOSE, CA 95193
S]lsSTONCHAIRMAN'SCOMPANY-; ADDRESS, AND PHONE NUMBER INSTALLATION CODE: IW

INFORMATION CENTER PROJECT - M377

PERSONAL COMPUTER INFORMATION CENTER ABSTRACT
by
Burton G. Snitz
IBM Corporation The General Products Division (GPD) of IBM has a major
5600 Cottle Road manufacturing facility located in San Jose, California.
San Jose,CA 95193 Like IBMs customers, the San Jose Manufacturing
community has created a large application backlog.
Th is bac k log is composed of a wi de range of
Installation Code: IW applications. T.he range includes, at the upper end, the

..
need for large integrated data-base systems spanning
Information Center Project - M377 many o~ganizations~ such as shop-floor control and
prodclct-cost systems. At the lower end of this range are
needs like modifications of existing reports or adding
<::> a r-eport to an existing application.
<::> PERSONAL COMPUTERS IN AN INFORMATION
CENTER ENVIRONMENT One way of reducing this backlog is to establish an
Informati on Center- (IC). The IC can provi de the San
Jos. user community with the tools and aids necessary to
Bill Bryan allow the users to reduce their own application backlog.
As the idea of an Information Center began to take
El Paso Natural Gas Company shape and the scope of its responsibilities began to
Computer Center Operations surface, it became obvi ous that the IBM Personal
P.O. Box 1492 Computer was going to playa significant role in the IC.
El Paso, Texas 79978 The Personal Computer Information Center (PCIC) was
(915) 541-2790 established as a part of t~e San Jose Information
Center.
ENG
This paper will address:

The need for the Informati on Center
Information Center Project
The establishment of the IC and PCIC

( Sessien M377
The organization and scope of the centers

Impact on the user and Application Development
communities

-i-

4/b/pal/4
1" I NTRODUCTI ON
CONTENTS
Application Development (AD) organizations serving a
variety of user c:ommunities can no longer address the
1- INTRODUCTION total application backlog within their own
or"ganization. As users began to understand the
productivity benefit of the computer, a wave of new
requirements were being sent to the AD organizations.
2. MANUFACTURING APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT The San Jose Manufact.uring Applicat.ion Development
organization of IBM's General Products Division saw
t.his wave developing and began to explore new ways of
doing business. One of the ways of doing business was
3. MANUFACTURING INFORMATION CENTER 2 t.he creat.ion of the Information Center.

The GE-mer"l Products Divi,sion (GPD) has worldwide
development and manufac:turing responsibility for
4. IBM PERSONAL COMPUTER 3 high-perfor"mance storage systems, including tape
dr'ives!" disR files, and mass-storage systems; as well
as system printers!, DB/DC program products, pr-ogramming
I angLlages, and reI at.ed pr'ogr'amming.

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5. PERSONAL COMPUTER INFORMATION CENTER 6
GPD Headquar"ters is located in San Jose. The
Engineering and Manufacturing facilities ar-e located
a. Terminal room 6 both in San Jose and in Tucson. The GPD Programming
C:l Center-, Santa TEH"'esa Labclratory (STL) !I is about six
-..J miles south of the San Jose plant.
b. Education and consulting 7
The Manufac:turing Application Development or'ganization
is hei:ldql.lartE-~r-ed in San Jose, but has personnel located
c. Ordering, distributing, and servicing 8 at both San Jose and STL. The Tucson plant, the BTL
programming center, and GPD Headquarters each have
their' own AD organizat.ions.
d. Information focal point 9

2. MANUFI~CTlJRING APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
e. Auditing and security 10

Manufacturing Applicaticln Development (AD) , like
pr-[)gramming service organizations in many c:or-porations,
6. SUMMARY 12 supports applications such as materials logistics and
production control.

AD has gone through many transitional stages. In the
ear'ly s;tages it was AD telling the users what the
computer can do for them, and the c:auti OLlS users
put.t.ing sc)me applic:aticms on the batch systems. During
this st.c1ge the Llsers were still dependent on their
manual !:>ystems~ but were supported by the comput.er ..

Today. th,. cost of c:omputer usage is goi ng down, and
the availability of t.erminals and integrated data bases
is commonplace. This environment has allowed the users
-ii- to realize significant productivity gains in t.heir areas
thr-ough effecti ve U!5f? of real-ti mt-:? cDmputer