Representatives for companies like Intel Corp., Visa International and Chronicle Publishing Co. will detail alternatives they are working on to weather disruptions in power, transportation, telecommunications or the supply chain.
Ulrich, president of Tactical Strategy Group Inc. of Soquel, is a consultant to corporations with manufacturing plants abroad, where experts believe that computers will be more prone to Y2K disruptions.
''Contingency planning is when there is no power for an hour, you don't send anybody home,'' Ulrich said. ''If there is no power for a day, you send people home. If it's more than three days, you might have to lay people off. If power's not coming up for a month, you might shut the operation down permanently.''
Ulrich said he has clients who are stockpiling supplies and installing emergency generators -- the same steps being taken by individual Y2K survivalists and community preparedness groups.
Delta Air Lines has about 85 percent of its Y2K testing done and expects to be ready by midsummer. However, it also depends on outside companies for jet fuel and other essential supplies.
So Delta also is lining up different sources of jet fuel in case one supplier shuts down, said Walter Taylor, vice president for Delta Air Lines' computer technology division.
''We want to make sure we're not dependent on one because there's only so much capacity to store fuel at an airport,'' said Taylor, who will speak at the symposium.
Delta also is training a team of employees to staff a Y2K crisis management center, which starting in mid-December will monitor potential trouble spots around the world 24 hours a day.
If a foreign country is hit by power outages that affect its airports, the crisis center may decide to suspend flights to that country.
Then again, maybe nothing will happen and the world will go on with business as usual ...
sfgate.com
Cheryl
180 Days until 2000
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