MANUFACTURING & PROCESS CONTROL FAILURES & PROBLEMS
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ALCOA, BP, SHELL-EXXON Y2K
Four Alcoa Steel Plants
* 50% of control systems will fail
North Sea Expro (Shell-Exxon JV)
* Platform, Pipeline and Gas Plants
* 1200 systems identified, 12% failure rate
BP Refinery, Grangemouth, UK
* 94 systems identified
* Couldn't find vendor for 20
* 74 assessed
* 3 will fail, 2 will cause shutdown
techstocks.com
While the company was testing some of the equipment that controls oil valves in its refineries, engineers inadvertently discovered a host of new problems.
"Thousands of terminals that control the [dispensation] of oil have old chips with a year 2000 problem. The chips all need replacing, but the new chips won't fit on the old motherboards," Wengenroth notes. "And the new motherboards don't fit the old valves, so all the valves have to be replaced, too." If the company doesn't address all these problems, it soon won't be able to deliver oil to its customers.
techweb.com
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.
techstocks.com |
