PROBLEMS & FAILURES: Embedded Systems (Revised 11/13/97)
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Date-Related Problems with Electrical Utilities - REAL SCENARIOS
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ALCOA, BP, SHELL-EXXON Y2K: Initial Identified REAL Problems
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Automated warehousing failure ... A major grocery industry supplier experienced a critical systems failure because a program was not equipped to handle dates beyond 2000 - The impact of the failure of warehousing systems could be disastrous for both large retail chains and small retail outlets.
techstocks.com Sept '97
Power grid problems. Hawaiian Electric Company ran tests for its Y2K compliance in a simulator and found that "it simply stopped working". Part of its generation and transmission system would stop, and part would deliver power "at higher frequencies".
cv.nrao.edu Aug '97
Power Plant Failure. Embedded controller test shuts down 500 MW power plant
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Embedded Chip Y2K Lawsuit. Tired of losing business because its cash registers crash when credit cards list 2000 as an expiration date, Produce Palace an upscale grocery near Detroit, sued Tec-America, the vendor of its computerized point-of-sale and inventory system. The store's computer, installed in 1995, has crashed more than 100 times, rendering 10 cash registers useless during the crashes. The system froze when such cards were processed, and often took several hours to come back up, causing delays and loss of business while transactions were processed by hand. They are losing 30% to 40% of their business as a result.
freep.com Aug '97
cwlive.cw.com:8080/home/online9697.nsf/All/970812fruit
Production Line Stopped. A small manufacturer of industrial liquid solutions found their production line completely stopped on January 1, 1997. It was discovered that their process control systems were not designed to account for a leap year (1996) and subsequently shut down when the changed from 1996 to 1997. Before company personnel could remedy the situation, the liquid solutions that were in the process pipelines hardened and could not be removed. The company was forced to replace the process pipelines at a cost of $1 million. They were unable to manufacture products for several days, thereby, causing late deliveries to customers. In addition to the cost to repair the pipelines, the company believes they lost three new clients because their shipments were delayed.......
house.gov
House Embedded Systems Hearings
Plant would have tripped. US fossil facility was testing a boiler feedwater control loop for date rollover to Year 2000. .... In live situation, the plant would have tripped.
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Pacemakers. VA interviewed the top five pacemaker manufacturers to see if they were aware of a potential Year 2000 problem associated with downloading information about irregular heartbeats to cardiologists' computers. One company was aware of the problem and said they would have it corrected by the end of 1997. Two said that the problem would be fixed by the Year 2000, one before 1998. One company refused to acknowledge the problem and when pushed declined to discuss the topic further.
Heart Defbrillators. A new shipment of heart defibrillators received recently were recalled by the manufacturer because they were not designed to handle the change in century. (Defibrillators use an embedded device to check that the unit has been maintained on schedule, reducing the possibility of malfunctioning on a patient.) In neither case is it suggested that the devices themselves would actually malfunction. The impact on medical record-keeping and case-management could be significant, however. cv.nrao.edu Mar '97
Defense Department's Global Command and Control System flunked a Year 2000 rollover test during an Interoperability Exercise in August 1997 ..... In 10 of the 28 demos, either the software expired or the machines froze ..... One system crashed when it tried to cross over to 2000 and when it was rebooted, all user accounts were gone.
cv.nrao.edu Sept 22 '97
MORE Problems
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GARY NORTH'S EMBEDDED SYSTEM SITE: Scan Headlines
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