Embedded Systems Turn on Crowd
Here's the thing about embedded systems ... they may be the last item on corporate America's millennium "To Do" list ....
"The same people who designed mainframes designed microprocessors," Hall says. "It's the same logic pattern from mainframes to midrange systems to PLCs. The logic flow trickles down."
There is, however, at least one important difference. PLCs are virtually everywhere. In factories, phone switches, medical devices, transportation, security and intelligent building systems, environmental control equipment, point of sale devices and much more....
Hall heads up the Society for Information Management's Y2K task force on embedded software issues. He spoke this week at an industry conference and clearly drew the lion's share of crowd interest. Trained as a mechanical engineer, Hall built an Air Force career managing advanced technology programs in aerospace, logistics and intelligence......
Even though application software and microcode may share common ancestry, Hall says that when it comes to organizations seeing the bigger picture, embedded systems are the great divide. "The MIS department is taking care of mainframes and midrange systems and maybe PCs. Embedded systems fixes are the concern of a back shop engineer or they are outsourced to a third party. Companies don't try to fix their phone systems or building management systems. Even though they are similar, there's enough distance between computers and embedded systems that the twain never meet."
Here's another important nuance about embedded systems. According to Hall, no two are the same. "The problem.is that each is unique," Hall claims. "There are many options and they are easy to change." That means that the PLCs in factory A could be different than those in factory B and no generic testing will be effective. It's a problem with multiple dimensions.
In a manufacturing environment, for instance, information from systems on the factory floor will feed business information systems which, in turn, could interconnect with external suppliers and customers. Conversely, because these systems are highly integrated, a single PC might be controlling upwards of 200 realtime systems. "If two or five or ten of these systems have problems with dates, that could corrupt the PC, which could then shut down the process," Hall says.
Such a circumstance could mean multi-million dollar productivity losses, environmental accidents or worse. Hall cautions companies to follow along a familiar path: inventory, assess risk, fix, test, perform triage, and build a contingency plan. Fixing the dates in a highly sophisticated numerical controller or other device is, of course, a different kettle of fish, work not just any COBOL programmer can perform. Hall says organizations have three choices: contact the manufacturer, use the individual or firm performing normal maintenance to conduct an engineering evaluation, or hire someone else with sufficient knowledge and experience to perform this work.
Unfortunately, although Door Number One seems like the easiest and most direct approach, it may not deliver the anticipated results. "If you have systems that have been modified to meet your particular specifications, you can't call the manufacturer and say, 'Will it work?' Unless the manufacturer installed the system, they won't know how it has been modified." If systems have been changed, and most are, Hall suggests contacting the manufacturer for information, specifications and the like. For instance, a device may not use dates at all. Good information to have when going to fix it. "Start building a matrix of what you do know," Hall suggests.
ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook (Oct 17 '97 Vol 2, No. 39)Excerpt
Information Technology Association of America
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