Automation for All

Because of the expense, the biggest benefits of automation have largely been restricted to rich companies--until now. Last week California's Topp Industries announced a breakthrough in automation that will bring savings in cost and increased efficiency to small plants. Name of the new device: the Micro-Path Control System.

The system is the invention of Bill and Ruth Marantette, a young engineering, couple from Columbia Falls (pop. 1,232), Mont. They started work three years ago in a garage workshop with $2,500 in savings, an $1,800 loan, plus further cash put up by Topp when it bought the invention. The major objective of the Marantettes was to eliminate the complex, expensive computers used in previous control systems. Such computers cost $60,000 and up, need trained engineers to program and manage their operations; every instruction in a process must be turned into a mathematical equation, which is fed into a computer and transmitted first to punch tape, then to magnetic tape to guide the machines. The Marantettes' idea was far simpler: they wanted to use a stylus-like device connected to high-speed electric motors to "write" instructions directly on magnetic tape; when the tape was fed back electronically through the system of motors, the motors would then convert the tape impulses to mechanical action.

To make the idea work, the inventors had to develop a system of electric pulse motors that were able to direct a machine to perform all the intricate steps contained on the tape. Called pulse-servos, such motors have been in operation for years; the problem was that the fastest available could handle only 1,700 pulses per second, which was not enough for really sophisticated work. The great breakthrough came with the development of a super pulse-servo that could handle 6,000 pulses per second, fast enough to direct the most complex piece of milling work. To start the system, the operator merely runs the machine through its work by hand a first time. As he performs the task, the stylus records his most minute steps on tape, which then slavishly repeats the process endlessly with the pulse-servos. Cost of the system, which comes in a cabinet no bigger than a medium-size hi-fi set: from $12,000 to $25.000, plus $500 or so to fit it to whatever machine tool it is to operate.

Banks & Missiles. One of the first test machines was put to work for Cummins-Chicago Corp., makers of bank business machines, which needed a 600% increase in a certain manufacturing process; it got a 1,200% increase. The company also hoped to save $500 a week; it now saves about $1,000 a week on the process. Now Topp's Micro-Path division, headed by Thomas F. Johns, is out showing the machine to U.S. industry. North American Aviation wants four of the machines; Hughes Aircraft is interested in using the machine on a 20-ft. lathe to drill and rout its Falcon missile. There may be other uses beyond machine tools; Du Pont is investigating to see if the controls can be used to run chemical-mixing processes.

The Micro-Path System promises to be the hottest product marketed by Topp's two founders. President Bernard F. Gira and Executive Vice President Herbert J. Peterson. After working as purchasing agents in the aircraft industry, the two joined forces in 1955 to make electronic instruments for the missile age. They turn out instruments that tell an aircraft's angle of attack, compute its Mach number electronically, time and program the firing of its rocket armament; there is even an instrument to measure the structural-material erosion of missiles at hypersonic speeds. With a second division making radios and navigational facilities for the CAA's airways-improvement program, Topp turned a profit of $879,974 on sales of better than $10 million last year, and has a backlog of orders worth $9.000,000.

Topp's President Gira thinks his sales may double or triple with the new control system. All told, says Gira, there are 1,500,000 machine tools already in place in U.S. machine shops that could and should be fitted with automated controls.

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