Relay logic was certainly used prior to this. For example elevator call logic goes back to the 20s:<p><a href="http://elevation.wikia.com/wiki/Elevator_control_system" rel="nofollow">http://elevation.wikia.com/wiki/Elevator_control_system</a><p>Clearly the engineers involved had some way to think about it, but I suspect were not scholarly enough to write a paper about it. (not that I've researched this.. perhaps there were earlier papers).<p>Edit:
Well here is a patent:
<a href="https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/82/ae/57/d431cf0f65e923/US1904647.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/82/ae/57/d431cf0...</a><p>David Lindquist was Otis's lead engineer..