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Mike Winn is correct. Plants will not shut down on Jan 1, 2000, because the controllers don't care what the date is. I am an electrical engineer and have designed control systems using programmable logic controllers and operator interface systems (e.g. Wonderware, Genesis) for over 17 years. None of my systems will have any real hiccup as a result of y2k. It would be rare indeed to find programming within a PLC that would base any control activity on a date. Reason is, as a designer, you never know when the initialization time occurs. That is, time zero, such as after a shutdown.
I have spent much time on offshore oil production platforms, have operating designs on at least five platforms, and will sleep very nicely Dec 31, 1999.
The only problem I see is within the supervisory systems that may use a date for generating trend data. Typically, this is done by a PC and may require some adjustments for management to get proper reports.
But, unless I am missing something here, the PLCs controlling the plants, factories, oil production platforms, etc. will keep humming along.
Roger |
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