Sample selections from TAVA's Automation Component Compliance Database
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Vendor names removed
Real-world Examples of Manufacturing Y2K Exposures
XXXXX Real Time Clock ModuleXXX - Non-Compliant
The clock does not correctly roll over to the Year 2000. This is a critical error that can only be corrected by upgrading to a compliant product. Also, the product uses two-digit years. Since the code was written for two-digit years, it will have to be checked for compliance if it is going to be transported to the new product. Do not perform subtract or divide functions with two-digit years because the result can be calculated wrong. The product will have to be replaced because it will fail when the year changes to 2000. If the product is replaced, make sure that the new product can correctly handle the functionality of the old product, including custom code. The custom code may have to be modified or rewritten for the new product.
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XXXXX 4.11 on Windows 3.x - Non-Compliant
Known problems with historical trending, SPC and the vendor logger. These functions will fail on 2000-01-01.
Historical Sub-System: Several issues exist here. The historical trend wizard only deals with a two-digit year and limits entry to a value between 81 and 99. An entry for the year as 00 is invalid. The problems with this were patched in version 5.6A. Extreme care should be exercised if one attempts to advance the data on a functional system since the sub-system will automatically delete log files over a designated age. Advancing the date even momentarily may result in the loss of all your data.
SPC: Two issues here. SPC will not create a new data file in the year 2000 until XXXXX is restarted. After XXXXX is restarted, SPC will have no problems creating new files. Also, leap year day is not seen as a valid ate by SPC.
YYYYY: Windows 3 will roll the year from 99 to 100. This results in a formatting error when displaying the YYYYY files. All the data is shifted one space which results in an illegible date/time stamp.
ZZZZZ: - must be upgraded if historical trending is enabled or SPC is used. Also, the problem with the vendor logger can also cause some systems to fail where subsystems may be reading the formatted data, parsing the records and inserting them into database.
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XXXXX Analyze Software - Non-Compliant
Analyze Software only recognizes the last two digits of the year and assumes that the year is in the 20th century. This means that there will be a failure at the end of the year 1999. Dates will be recognized as 1900 instead of 2000. This is a critical error that can only be fixed by upgrading to a compliant product. Analyze Software was discontinued five years ago. Users will need to upgrade to a compliant software offering. Vendor recommends I----n, C---s or G---s.
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XXXXX Robot ControllerXX - Non-Compliant
BIOS will not recognize dates past December 31, 1999 11:59:59PM. Machine clock will reset to a date in 1980. Time will be incorrect. DOS files Date/Time stamp will be incorrect. The severity of the problem will depend on how, if at all, dates are used by the robot. This product was formerly sold by C----i M---n. Correction options will be determined on a case by case basis. If dates are not used by the robot, no corrective action may be required. Otherwise, manually resetting the date or a BIOS upgrade may be options.
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XXXXX Calibrator/XXX - Non-Compliant
Model XXX calibrator will not perform date functions correctly after 1999-12-31. Customers need to request firmware upgrades. This could perhaps be accomplished during annual recalibration/recertification.
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XXXXX MAX1 Control Systems - Non-Compliant
DPU's display year 2000 as 100. Controller Files display the year 2000 as 128. Trending must be restarted. Vendor CS will provide support for all its systems. To date, no formal statement has been issued. However, some minor cosmetic problems have been found. Methods of correcting these problems are being developed and tested. There have been no fatal errors found in these systems.
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XXXXX Gas Analyzer/1600 - Non-Compliant
The 1600 series does not see the year 2000 as a leap year. Also, the first character in the date for years 2000-2009 is being assigned incorrectly. The product line has been discontinued, so there will be no fix available from the vendor. Correction options will be determined on a case by case basis. If the known date problems are not serious for a particular application, no upgrade may be necessary. The user will, however, have to reset the clock manually on 2000-02-29. If the known problems must be corrected, the only way to do so is to upgrade to a compliant product.
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There are many more examples, but this should give you an idea of what is found in the PlantY2K One proprietary database.
Seems like it would save a LOT of time and money to get the CD and see what's already been found, rather than tying up time and money contacting vendors and starting from scratch!!!!
TAVA's direct field experience with more than 30 Y2K clients across scores of plants, show that, on average, 25-30% of automation hardware and software is NOT Year 2000 ready.
For a manufacturing firm, company viability is at stake.
Plants WILL have problems. They will range anywhere from aggravating and erratic production problems, to lines that will not run because some critical manufacturing systems have stopped running, to having serious safety and quality problems and long-term disruptions.
The problem events could be many and concurrent, causing breakdown scenarios more like a plague of termites, than a tornado. Like bee stings, one or two don't hurt too bad, but hundreds can kill you.
Along with this, NO ONE will have enough staff or have enough contingency planning to deal with the amount of concurrent failure that is possible if no action is taken, especially when considering the external environment and supply issues.
Download Plant Y2K One Animation for more info:
planty2kone.com
TAVA's PlantY2KOne CD Description: by John Hanzl
There have been some questions regarding the level of quality of TAVA's PlantY2Kone CD. In specific, I am responding to the following question (s):
1) How well does the CD work in helping companies assessing the Y2K problems?
2) Does it list out the components that are not Y2K compliant
3) Does it present a step by step approach to do the assessment
4) How well is it organized?
5) Does is it use some kind of top down approach, bottom up approach, relational ...database approach?
6) Does it have some kind of modeling methodology to represent the data flow in a ...factory?
7) What kind of report does it produce, etc.?
Message 3326652 |
