Detailed guide to the complex Tea Blending job and how to programme the various tasks for processing by LEO

Author is not specified - probably David Caminer.

Research comments: this document provides an extraordinarily detailed insight into production by J. Lyons & Co. of the nation's favourite beverage - tea. In terms of computing history it also illustrates the kinds of commercial task that we now take for granted that computers can do, although in 1954 this was new: to calculate the average price of stock items (in this case tea), stock control and reporting, especially when stock is running low or is slow moving, the profit and loss inherent in certain combinations of stock items (in this case certain blends of tea), valuations of stock for insurance purposes and financial quarter and year end reporting, and records of the purchase price of stock at auction (in this case the Mincing Lane auctions in London).

The document states that data, including forecasts, are held in punched card form. The level of detail is indicative of just how much attention Lyons paid to its manufacturing and office processes even before they moved to using computing power; they have an intricate understanding of which data are needed for manufacturing and for management processes, where the data are currently held, how they are calculated and when they are needed as well as how the data is collected together and where errors might occur.

The document does not specify which LEO will undertake the tea blending job (known as L4) but the date is consistent with it being run on LEO I initially. Lyons declared that construction and modification of LEO I had been completed on Christmas Eve 1953 and then made the decision to go ahead with LEO II in 1954. (LM)

Provenance :
From David Caminer's papers.