Email from Roleigh Martin: 'Proposed Questions for Water Utilities by Any Agency or Organization
Investigating the Year 2000 Embedded Systems Threat to Water Utility Operations
by Roleigh Martin, 8/1/1998
5511 Malibu Drive, Edina MN 55436
ourworld.compuserve.com
email: marti124@tc.umn.edu
(Note, the word "Minnesota" appears in this example; substitute your own locality name if you desire to use this in another country, state, province, county or metropolitan area.)
Instructions
This questionnaire is concerned about the Year 2000 problem as it relates to plant equipment (hardware) vital for all water utility functions (providing clean water and handling waste water). It is not concerned about computer hardware used for processing business accounting and customer billing information. "Embedded systems" is defined by the Institution of Electrical Engineers as electric-powered:
"Devices used to control, monitor or assist the operation of equipment, machinery or plant. "Embedded" reflects the fact that they are an integral part of the system. In many cases their embeddedness may be such that their presence is far from obvious to the casual observer and even the more technically skilled might need to examine the operation of a piece of equipment for some time before being able to conclude that an embedded control system was involved in its functioning. At the other extreme a general purpose computer may be used to control the operation of a large complex processing plant, and its presence will be obvious."
This questionnaire refers to this area of the Year 2000 problem as a "Year 2000 Embedded Systems" Program or Y2K E.S. for short. The Y2K E.S. problem is concerned about your devices being able to handle the following dates that sometimes cause problems: 1/1/1999 (some devices treat the year '99' as "year never entered"), 9/9/1999, 1/1/2000, 2/29/2000, and 12/31/2000 (some devices fail on this date because the device wrongly only expected 364 days in 2000 not realizing it was a leap year). In addition, testing is concerned about the dates before and after these dates as problems often occur in the rollover of dates. Last, testing is also concerned about the first weekend of the year 2000 in case there is day-of-the-week logic and it confuses the year 2000 for 1900 and incorrectly calculates the wrong weekend dates for 2000. Untreated, devices have been known to exhibit one of three behaviors upon encountering one of these dates: (a) no problem, (b) a clear halt/freeze or abort, or (c) operation continues but erroneously.
Questions
1) What is your title -- if you have multiple job titles/functions, indicate that which is most appropriate for this questionnaire:
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2) How many physical water utility plants located in Minnesota are you answering on behalf of? __________
a) ___ We have physical water utility plants located only in Minnesota.
b) ___ We have physical water utility plants located inside and outside of Minnesota.
i) If you made this last choice, we do not want to make this questionnaire difficult. If it is easy for you to only talk about your Minnesota operations, please indicate such; if it is only easy for you to talk about all of your operations including those that are out of state, please indicate such:
(1) ____ We are answering only about our Minnesota facilities.
(2) ____ We are answering about all of our facilities including those that are out of state.
3) Do your facilities perform all water utility functions (providing clean water and handling waste water)?
a) ________ Yes
b) ________ No, our facilities handle the following water utility functions:
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4) How many customers (approximately) are served by all of the physical water utility plants that you are answering on behalf of? _________________________________
5) What Month and Year did your water utility first document that it had established someone or a team to formally study the Year 2000 problem as it relates to plant equipment (hardware) vital for all water utility functions (providing clean water and handling waste water). Please check off the appropriate line below (include the date if choosing the first line below).
______We formally started our Y2K E.S. Program in _______________(Month/Year)
______ We have not yet formally started a Y2K E.S. Program.
6) When did your utility first developed a written, detailed Y2K E.S. Program? Please indicate the Month/Year or indicate "None so far" ___________________________
7) How many Full Time Employees (FTEs) did you have working on the Y2K E.S. program in July, 1998? (Enter zero (0) if none.) _______________
8) There are three ways to go about a Y2K E.S. Program and it is recommended to do all three if it is possible--sometimes you can not do all three. Please indicate how many calendar (not man-months) months you have done each of the three actions:
a) __________ Code Examination for Y2K E.S. problems (for some embedded systems, like SCADA or PLCs, it is sometimes possible to examine the actual code of the system for Year 2000 problems)
b) __________ Vendor Interrogation (if the vendor who sold you and/or who made the device is still in business, it is very important to contact the vendor about the devices that you have about (a) what the vendor says about the device and its ability to still work in 2000 and (b) whether and how an end-user can test/verify that the outcomes found by the vendor's own testing--if done--can be duplicated for the exact equipment you have on site. Whether you have done (a) or (b) or both, indicate the number of months engaged in doing either or both.)
(Published test results of over 10,000 embedded systems have found that 20 percent of the time one or more customers will find that equipment found Y2K compliant by a vendor is not found compliant by the customer. This is sometimes because small variations can exist between the equipment the vendor currently has in house to test and your exact copy of the equipment. Many customers will find that some identical pieces of equipment will encounter different Y2K test outcomes -- some failing, some not. This is not uncommon.)
c) __________ End User Y2K Testing (done by or for your utility by your own Y2K staff or Y2K consultants that you have hired).
Such testing will cover at a minimum the following dates: 1/1/2000 and 2/29/2000 and the rollover into these dates from the day before. It is recommended to cover all the dates mentioned in the opening instruction paragraph but if you have at least covered these dates, indicate the number of months here.
9) Have you identified all mission-critical equipment that needs to be remediated through a vendor order placed, and have you placed those orders, and have you been given firm ship dates that convince you that you will receive and install all those items in time?
a) ______ Yes, we have "identified all mission-critical equipment that needs to be remediated through a vendor order placed"
b) ______ If Yes, we have "placed those orders" and we have received ACCEPTABLE expected-receive dates that convinces us we will receive and install all mission-critical items in time.
c) ______ If Yes, we have "placed those orders" but WE HAVE NOT received ACCEPTABLE expected-receive dates that convinces us we will receive and install ALL mission-critical items in time.
d) ______ No, we have NOT "identified ALL mission-critical equipment that needs to be remediated through a vendor order placed"
e) ______ If No, when do you think you will be at the point of placing orders for ALL mission critical items that need to be remediated through a vendor order placed? ___________________ (we realize this is only an estimated month/year)
f) ______ We have completed a formal Y2K E.S. assessment and found out we DID NOT need to order anything new.
10) Are you 100 percent done with a formal Y2K E.S. Project?
a) ____ Yes AND we have had an outside formal audit verify our project.
b) ____ Yes AND we have NOT had an outside formal audit verify our project.
c) ____ No, we are not 100 percent done -- we estimate we are ________ done with a formal Y2K E.S. Project.
11) If your utility has done Y2K E.S. testing, about how many SUSPICIOUS embedded systems items were or are scheduled for testing? (For the first two lines, check the line if it is your answer, for the third line--if that is your answer, indicate an approximate number.)
a) ________ We have not done any Y2K E.S. Testing
b) ________ We have done Y2K E.S. Testing but we did not document the number of items tested
c) __________________ We have done or will do Y2K E.S. testing on this many embedded systems items.
i) If you provided a number above, please indicate about what percentage of the items were found to fail your Y2K E.S. tests?
(1) ____________ the number provided was for scheduled testing, actual testing is not completed so we can not provide failure percentages.
(2) ____________ the number provided was for completed testing and this many percent failed and the failures were mission critical failures
(3) ____________ the number provided was for completed testing and this many percent failed but the failures were nothing but insignificant failures that would not have "bothered us" or affected our operations in 2000 if we had done no formal Y2K E.S. testing
(4) How many devices were found to fail on 1-1-1999?
(a) _______ number of devices failed on 1-1-1999
(b) If a number was given, please describe the most serious findings:
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12) If your utility is finished with its Y2K E.S. assessment of the equipment it finds it needs to replace, please indicate what the impact your experts think would have been on your utility if you had not done a Y2K E.S. project. Answer one or more items if appropriate.
a) ___________ Not applicable -- we are not yet finished with our Y2K E.S. assessment.
b) ___________ If we did not or do not replace the identified non-Y2K compliant equipment and if we did not know ahead of time about the problem, human safety would have been significantly at risk in at least one serious situation.
c) ___________ If we did not or do not replace the identified non-Y2K compliant equipment and if we did not know ahead of time about the problem, we would need additional employees to adequately handle human workarounds for the problems that would be faced by the non-Y2K compliant equipment failures.
d) ___________ If we did not or do not replace the identified non-Y2K compliant equipment and if we did not know ahead of time about the problem, we think someone could get seriously sick or have died in at least one serious situation.
13) What simplifying assumptions did your engineers and programmers make to minimize physical testing of every embedded system you own and/or operate (not all embedded systems have clocks or deal with dates/times). ________________________________________________________________________
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14) Please explain any contingency plans your utility have developed to address potential Y2K E.S. problems.
a) ________We have not developed a written contingency plan.
b) ________We have developed a written contingency plan and in brief, the details are as follows:
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15) How long will your water utility work if your electric utility is down or the power grid is down? That is, do you have your own backup power generators and how long will they operate for your facilities?
a) ________ We do not have our own backup power generators for ALL of our mission-critical facilities.
b) ________ We do have our own backup power generators for ALL of our mission-critical facilities.
i) If you answered this choice, your backup power generators will on average for each of your mission-critical facilities provide electricity for how long (please indicate in days or fraction of days): ____________________
16) When did you communicate about your Y2K E.S. Project to your customers?
a) _______ We have not done any Y2K E.S. communications either because we do not have a Y2K E.S. project underway yet or because we just have not communicated to them yet even though we do have a Y2K E.S. project.
b) _______ We have communicated about our Y2K E.S. project to our customers in the following ways (check off all that pertain):
i) _______ We have responded in writing to inquiries and we have received at least one.
ii) _______ We have enclosed information in our billing(s) to our customers.
iii) _______ We have responded verbally to inquiries and we have received at least one.
iv) _______ We have published information on the internet at this web site address: ______________________________________________________
v) _______ Other (please describe): __________________________________
17) When did you investigate the Y2K E.S. efforts of the electric utility provider that you depend upon? Please enter the month/year that you first inquired.
a) _________ We have not made an inquiry with our electric utility.
b) _________ was the month/year that we have inquired with our electric utility and we ARE CONVINCED they are on top of this problem.
c) _________ was the month/year that we have inquired with our electric utility and we are NOT YET convinced they are on top of this problem.
18) Do you plan to stockpile, beyond your normal inventory buildups, any of your mission-critical supplies before 1/1/2000 - such as chemicals used in your water utility operations?
a) _________ We do not plan to do any extraordinary stockpiling at this time.
b) _________ We do plan to stockpile mission-critical supplies at extraordinary inventory buildup levels for the 1/1/2000 event.
19) On average, how many days NOW can your water utility operate without ANY resupplies received for the mission-critical supplies that your water utility depends upon (excluding electricity)?
a) _________ days
20) On average for all of your facilities, how many days do you currently plan for your facilities to operate on and after 1/1/2000 if for some reason you do not get any more mission-critical supplies delivered after 1/1/2000?
a) _________ days
21) What advice do you have for the State of Minnesota regarding overseeing the year 2000 embedded systems projects of other Water utilities? Particularly those utilities who are behind your own efforts or who are in your situation if you are also behind in this effort?
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22) Is there anything statewide or national organizations, or the government, could do to make your job easier to more expeditiously Y2K remediate your utility equipment? What is the 1-3 most important things that you would like to see done that would help your efforts? Also Indicate whom you think is most appropriate to do what you want done.
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23) Can we contact you in the future? ________Yes __________No
If you answered "Yes," please provide your name and contact information:
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND RESPONSES
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