'Honeywell chairman: ...one of the most worrying areas is the field of industrial process control.'
From:
millennia-bcs.com
'Essential Systems and Services
IX. Chemical Process Industry (CPI)
According to CPI, the Year 2000 problem may be catastrophic for the chemical process industries, the bug could cause innumerable shutdowns and horrific accidents. "The consequence of a computer 'hiccup' in process control is much more severe than what would happen to your word-processor program on a PC," points out Dave Imming, head of the Y2K team at Fisher-Rosemount Systems.
Though many firms are well on the way towards Y2K software compliance,Honeywell Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Bonsignore said one of the most worrying areas is the field of industrial process control. At one large chemical process industry company ($5 billion in sales), "A lot the DCS's, PLC's, lab instruments and so on may have problems," says the IT manager. At Shell, the Y2K team is working to inventory equipment with embedded chips. "We have to see what we have, and address the vendors for each," says Ron Quiggins, Director of Renew 2000 at Shell Services Co.
Additionally, many instruments and "smart" units throughout a plant may be controlled by microchips with Y2K problems as well. "This is a problem specific to the chemical industries, as you have many unique, embedded systems," says Year 2000 analyst Peter de Jager. "In a chemical process, you just can't afford to have your process control doing something it shouldn't." ' |
