'
Shipping full-speed ahead to beat millennium bomb
Copyright c 1998 Nando.net
Copyright c 1998 Reuters News Service
LONDON (June 16, 1998 10:39 a.m. EDT nando.net) - World shipping is at risk from the millennium computer bomb, delegates to a conference were told on Monday, and much work needs to be done to ensure against catastrophic failure.
Installation of computer driven systems in merchant shipping has meant that big tankers and carriers might each have more than 100 chips running engine rooms, navigation and communications and managing cargo.
According to a recent report from London's Entropy Management Ltd., up to 20 percent of these chips could fail because of millennium problems.
The failures could occur because some computers and chips, the brains behind computers, have been inadequately programmed to handle the change of date from 1999 to 2000.
The shedding of manual labour by the automation of shipping over recent years might also provide big challenges.
Navies tend to rely on human input to manage ships' systems, but merchant ships have cut back on crews to such an extent that in the event of massive systems failure no backup would be available, delegates were told.
Delegates were also told to be wary of computer industry claims that even the latest systems would function beyond Dec. 31, 1999. Every product should be tested.
According to Malcolm Gosling, Head of Electrical Services at Royal Dutch's Shell Trading and Shipping Company, Shell's programme to ensure that its ship's computers and chips can handle the switch into the next millennium should be completed by the end of this year.
"The plans are for it to be completed by the end of 1998," Gosling told Reuters. "We have about 50 ships and so far we've logged about 3,000 computer chips," he said.
He said that the task was massive and it was difficult to be absolutely certain systems would work.
"I'm sure that something will fall over (crash) that we haven't even thought of yet," Gosling said.
Gosling said that Shell had tested systems on Very Large Crude Carriers, and found failures in seven areas including radar system mapping, ballast monitoring, and ships performance monitoring.
"Not one of these failures would stop the ship, but they might if they all happened together," Gosling said.
Gosling also said that systems on a gas carrier had failed tests, including equipment for unloading the cargo and navigation.
At airports where Shell delivered supplies, failures due to Year 2000 problems included flow metering, fire alarms, and climate control.
....
nando.net |
