PLANNING FOR GENERALIZED BUStNESS SYSTEMS

The systems and programming staffs which have grown up within many large organizations may be described with considerable appropriateness as programming "factories." This designation could be used to characterize the programming groups employed by the computer manufacturers and those of the large companies engaged in producing proprietary programs. It is especially descriptive of the technical staff of a large commercial bank. The idea of regarding the systems and programming resources of a bank as instruments of production has become especially appropriate within the recent past as the emphasis in banking automation has shifted from development of internal systems to systems designed to aid the bank's customers. This change-and it is a fundamental one-is partly the result of the remarkable progress made to date in automating the voluminous internal accounting and data handling functions of the bank. In commercial banking the "Big Three" applications are demand deposit. accounting, savings accounting, and installment loan accounting. In the course of computerizing these applications a great deal of data processing expertism has been developed within the banks, and tremendous equipment