I was thinking of writing an article for the Plymouth Owners Club "The Bulletin" about build cards. Matthew has long been into these, and has deciphered much about them - I plan to give him attribution.
I could use some more examples besides Faulkner's, though. Speaking of which, here it is:
Do you have one? It doesn't even have to be for your car, just any example you might have.
It turns out that a pretty decent explanation of build cards has already been written - you can read all about it here on the Imperial Club website. But it doesn't explain what has been puzzling me. Look here at Faulkner's build card, where I've collapsed the right side up against the left side to make it obvious:
Along the left side are the row numerals 0 through 9,and along the bottom the column numbers 1 through 80. The horizontal position - combined with the vertical position of a punch - permit you to encode a 3 digit value. e.g., there are three punches in column 30 of Faulkner's build card further above, in position 1, 2 and 4. These correspond to 301 (power steering), 302 (power brakes) and 304 (power windows), respectively.
But the two punches I've highlighted above, don't correspond to a numeric row value. Larry's build card has the same punches! The card from the Imperial Club website has punches in these rows as well, but they are in different positions.
What do they mean? I thought perhaps they might be "registration" punches - meaning, if the tabulating machine detected holes in these positions, it knew the card was registered correctly for reading the other punches. But I don't think that's right now - if it were for registration, the punches would be further apart. According to this Wiki article, there were two rows above the 0-9 rows that were for "zone punches" - 11 and 12 zones (or X and Y zones), used to convey additional information. But what? The occur in horizontal positions 67 and 80 on both my build card, and Larry's. And in both our cards, position 67 also has a punch in row 4 - it's not clear that 674 is independently encoded (this code doesn't appear in any document Matthew showed me, to date), or if the "X" is meant to convey something in combination with 674.
Quite a paradox on the early days of manufacturing automation. I would have guessed Alignment registration punches - as you said if the tabulating machine detected holes in these positions, it knew the card was registered correctly for reading the other punches
My early years working at Pfizer we used Punch Cards and we used Digital Equipment (DEC) card readers. This identifier holes were needed for the 'readers' to confirm the correct product line.
Is there some other parameter that is in common with similar cards? Production zone Location? Assembly Line? I'm just guessing here....
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