John Deere parts inventory cards

Is there anyone on here that remembers the pre computer days when the JD dealer had cards of all the parts ?? I am just under 60 and worked with these cards many years either doing the daily inventory update on previous days part sales or ordering the preseason stock orders. On the busy spring days one had to spend lots of time reviewing each counter ticket and updating the inventory.

I remember those days... they were the days a lot of guys had common part numbers memorized, they knew you, and what year your tractors were. Those guys lasted more than 6 months on the job, too!

I worked awhile at the MF dealer years ago, had the Visirecord parts card file system that was used for years. Not as fast as a computer, BUT didn't ever go down or lock up either!

Hey 8850dave,
Yes I do. I worked at a International dealer in the early seventies that had a card system that had been in use for a long time. It was on the way out but I used it for a while. I remember the new computer inventory sheet was that ream paper that was a connected. Wasn't half bad as it was updated weekly from sales receipts. It saved all the time of running through the cards to do inventory or put together a stock order. Good Times! Kinda miss them now!
John

I started working at the dealership in 1974 the card system was used and seemed to take a lot of time to deal with,, I did not work parts so I was not involved with using it,,and yes a lot of the part numbers were memorized back then,,mainly because there weren't as many numbers and a lot of the tractors used the same parts..

Are you talking about the fish/phish cards? Had the lit table you put the card on and the card was increased in size on a screen. Independent shop had some I remember.

Yes I remember the cardboard parts inventory cards. There were many containers of cards. I began employment at JD dealership in '65. IIRC there was a metal "stock order indicator" that was slipped on inventory card so part could be ordered on monthly stock order

The Inventory system we used was From ASORTA Post.. parts man at the end of the day Or the Beginning of the following day
would go threw each counter ticket, or repair order & remove ( - ) 1 2 or 3 how ever many were sold from inventory. If stocking
level reach a Low point to reorder the card was placed back in the file upside down & a tab would be sticking up.. He then would
reorder stock by looking at each card that had been turned over. With our system If a Part was ORDERED a Green tab was placed on the
card & if the part was Back Ordered a Red tab was used. Some times when business was good it took some to do it, it was easy, but
it had to be done right. There also different colored cards, Green was Used for PAINTs, Blue was for OIL's, Tan used for parts, & Grey
used for tires. Those were the good Ole Days...

Those metal indicators were red or yellow depending on how urgent a reorder was if I remember correctly.

A dealer a couple hours from here was using them to an extent still 2 years ago when I bought his remaining service tools. He had ceased being an ag dealer in about 1988 but carried on selling consumer products He had a computer system as well so he could order from Deere but somehow used the cards for inventory purposes I think. I pulled a couple of cards, one had last been dated 1974. His inventory parts bins looked much the same, corn picker parts mixed with some higher turn items. He had a few boxes with the circa 1936 logo. i tried to buy his Master parts Index but it stayed there.

Yeh...I went to work for a JD dealer in late 1988. They still used the phish cards and viewers....had some sort of phone key system machine that the parts manager used to place the next day's parts order and the stock orders.

Wasn't long and JD required our store to update to a computer parts look-up/ordering system.

I had worked for a Ford/Case/Stieger dealership and a Massey Ferguson/Allis Chalmers dealership previously and can recall using phish(micro-fiche..or something like that) systems for at least some of the parts at those dealerships...but a lot of books.

I still have several boxes of fisch cards and a few price cards..

Would love to see a picture or two. I can't even imagine not having a computer to do inventory. (shows my age)

I remember those days from a different perspective possibly. I was employed by Texas Instruments and worked out of Memphis TN. We had the contract to install and repair of the "new units" at the IH dealers. They were really primitive for what is available now, just a keyboard unit with a thermal paper printer and dual cassettes that the orders were recorded on and then transmitted to the warehouses. One dealer in Arkansas would periodically make the staff use the old method, just so people didn't forgot how to do it. This method was supposed to eliminate so much paper use, just look at what is used now to know that didn't happen.

Is that why I still have many old part numbers still in my head that I pull out of my head from time to time.

Now that you mention the colored tabs I do vaguely remember those little tabs that were placed on some cards. I can't remember the exact year but the parts inventory cards went in the very early 1980's

There was a card for every part number. Each day, someone would go through yesterday's counter sales tickets and adjust the inventory. If you took the last part from a bin, or you thought the inventory on a popular part was getting low, you were supposed to 'flag' it- attach a little metal tab to the card. There were different colors for different messages, but I can't recall the system we used. There would be one color for items out of stock but low volume to be ordered on stock order, another color for emergency next-day ordering in season, and another color for fill-in orders- sort of in-between. It was my job as Parts Manager to go through the flagged cards and make a decision before the ordering deadline each day.

Stock orders (every two weeks) were written out longhand and sent by post- they had to be legible!

Daily emergency restocking and customer special orders (there was another card system for that) were placed via a system called FLASH (Fast Locating And Special Handling) using a machine called JD DART (I don't recall what DART stood for). It was in a case with a clamshell top. You plugged it in, attached a phone handset in two cups in the back, dialed a number (Screech! Squawk!, Squirr!), and entered your information via a keyboard. The daily deadline was 3pm for shipment the same day to be received the next day by UPS or whatever carrier you specified. In season, you had to watch the clock carefully and there was often a mad scramble to beat the clock!

After 3:00 and around the clock until I think 8:00am, there was a system called Flash Plus, and I think you had to call up and talk to a person at the other end- in our case it was the Parts Distribution Center in Milan, Illinois. Partly this was because typically there were special arrangements for customer or dealer pickup (will-call) to be made.

It was a big, tedious job to switch over to a computerized system. I think you could 'hire' Deere people to do it for you, or you could do it yourself (which "we" did). I had to look at each and every card (more than 20,000 as I recall), and choose a code and bin location for each part number. The owner was pretty atavistic and made us keep up the old card system also- sheesh!

Each part also had a source code assigned by Deere according to the factory where it was produced. The exception to this was the code 0J for parts that had been stocked at one time, but didn't sell enough at your location to be reordered. 0J was always referred to as 'Old Junk'.

Those were the days when Deere built their reputation for parts service. I can remember ordering a part that wasn't available in Milan. We ordered it one morning and got it from Stockton, California the following afternoon! Another time, there was a run on rotary screen belts for the new 9000 series combines, and PDC ran out. We got belts off assembly line combines to keep customers going.

The microfiche were index-card-sized parts catalogs, and I got pretty proficient at using them (and at maintaining the viewing machines). Woe betide the guy who misplaced one of those little cards! There were regular updates- especially for current machines. Some ornery customers didn't trust them and would insist on using the paper parts catalogs. We would explain that the paper books were no longer updated and make them wait while we looked up their parts in the book and then went to the microfiche to get the newer information. Of course, some very old machines were not on microfiche. I shocked a guy one time by getting parts for his crib elevator (the vertical kind).

Ah, those were the days...

To add to spacechem's post When the 8630/8430's came out Deere added an "X order" when a 4X4 part was needed in a hurry,,these orders were greatly expedited..Deere was wanting to make those big tractor owners happy... I used micro fish cards here for a long time,, and I was good at finding what I needed quickly,,I never thought I would put them on the shelf,,the My Deere site is by far a greater system...