PROBLEMS & FAILURES: Embedded Systems (Revised 1/22/98)
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Date-Related Problems with Electrical Utilities - REAL SCENARIOS
techstocks.com
ALCOA, BP, SHELL-EXXON Y2K: Initial Identified REAL Problems
techstocks.com
Pharmaceutical Problems. Smith Kline Beecham bought two machines for monitoring and recording the performance of drug production. When they tested one, it handled January 2000 ... but when they tested the other (same machine, identical chips) ... it didn't. The scary explanation for the anomaly, when the firm checked serial numbers with the manufacturer, was that the chips had come from different makers, one of whom had made them year 2000 compliant, while the other hadn't. Documentation down to this level of detail is often not specified in the world of embedded systems. These were machines had been made in 1996.
computerweekly.co.uk
Sewage Treatment Problem
A US sewage treatment plant found that a couple of hundred of its valve control systems were going to release untreated sewage into a river in the year 2000.
ourworld.compuserve.com
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 Plant Failures.
Embedded controller test shuts down 500 MW power plant
techstocks.com
They failed three times from three different chip failures. The third failure would have
created a grid-wide problem. It took 13 days to fix these plants....
garynorth.com
They fired up the power plant. It ran perfectly.....for 20 seconds.
Message 3197810
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
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
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
1st Y2K Lawsuit - Credit Card Swipers (Embedded Systems). 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
GARY NORTH'S EMBEDDED SYSTEM SITE: Scan Headlines
garynorth.com
FYI - Elevators should NOT be falling. What most likely will happen is that they will move to the basement for the regular maintenance check and then not operate until embedded system is fixed.
Known medical devices with Year 2000 problems, which may not work properly
" Anesthesia monitors
" Fetal monitors
" MRI machine
" Infusion pumps in intravenous drips
" Heart defibrillators
" Pacemakers
" Intensive care monitors
" CT scans
" Dialysis, chemotherapy and radiation equipment
" Laboratory, radiology and other diagnostic systems
ALL devices must be individually tested. The same brand, batch /date, model can have differences in the Y2K compliancy of the individual units.
exchange2000.com
Pacemakers. VA interviewed the top five pacemaker manufacturers to see if they were aware of a potential Year 2000 problem associated with downloading info 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
Following link can no longer be accessed. It's a shame. It had verified failures for medical, oil & gas, commercial vehicles and mining - with some actual company names.
dpweb1.dp.utexas.edu |
