'USPS Going Down Very Hard and There Is NO Fix
asked in the TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Q&A Forum
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I worked on a project that audited the complete computational and technical activities of one of France's biggest corporations in the mid-80s and became very familiar with the way that we had to construct the language of our reports to encode our findings.
In the interest of helping fellow readers, my comments to this are in brackets. There is some sardonic humor involved, but only because the situation of the Postal Service in the U.S. is so bad that you have to laugh a little. BTW, here is one of the cases where 2nd world countries will do better because they are not as automated as we are. Fat lot of comfort that is.
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Statement by KARLA W. CORCORAN, INSPECTOR GENERAL UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TEHCNOLOGY of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 23, 1999
Chairman Horn, Chairman McHugh, Chairperson Morella, and Members of the Subcommittees, I am Karla Corcoran, Inspector independent Inspector General for the U.S. Postal Service, and have served in this position since January 1997. . . .
As you know, the Y2K problem results from the way in which computer systems store and process dates. In many systems, the year 2000 will be indistinguishable from the year 1900, thereby causing potential system failures. The Postal Service is heavily dependent on automation to carry out its mission. In 1998, the Postal Service used automation and information systems to deliver 198 billion pieces of mail, maintain its nationwide network of over 38,000 post offices and facilities, and pay its more than 775,000 career employees. This dependency on automated systems makes the Postal Service highly susceptible to the Y2K problem.
["highly susceptible" is a code phrase for: if Y2K isn't fixed at near 100%, they're toast. For Y2K mavens, the finance industry is also "highly susceptible"]
As a key element in our nation's communication and commerce infrastructure, its preparedness may be crucial to the nation's Y2K readiness. Both the private sector and government may rely on the Postal Service as a contingency if their systems fail on January 1, 2000.
[Again, put the criticality of the post office up there with the banks and the national guard.]
While the Postal Service has made progress in pursuing solutions to its Y2K problems, it still faces significant challenges in the ten months that remain. . . .
["significant challenges" always mean, "something has gone badly wrong and I'm now about to tip you off to the real issues ..."]
I. USPS Y2K EFFORTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In 1993, the Postal Service's Vice President for Information Systems provided guidance for solving the Y2K problem within the Postal Service. Initially, only one Postal headquarters organization, Information Systems, was committed to, and engaged in, a solution even though it was a Postal-wide problem.
["even though": these guys knew better back then and punted]
In 1995, the Postal Service established a two-person Y2K program office. In 1997, the Postal Service expanded the program office to 12 people and selected an Executive Program Director, who reported to the Vice President of Information Systems, to lead, manage, and report on the Y2K Initiative. During this time, the Postal Service recognized the scope and complexity of the Y2K challenge, and hired contractors to Y2K program was expanded to include non-information systems areas such as external suppliers, mail processing equipment, and facilities. . . .
[the "2 people" and "12 people" is the auditor's injection of heavy sarcasm into the formal text]
To date, the Postal Service estimates it has spent about $200 million to address the Y2K challenge. In its most recent report to the Office of Management and Budget, the Postal Service estimates it will spend a total of $607 million to resolve the Y2K challenge.
[the auditor is letting their own self-reported numbers show that it isn't going to make it]
II. YEAR 2000 AUDIT RESULTS TO DATE. . . .
When we began auditing the Y2K Initiative in 1997, we found that Postal management had not fully identified the extent of the Y2K challenge and, in our judgment, was behind schedule in correcting the problem. Subsequent audit coverage concentrated on the adequacy of Y2K reporting and the Postal Service's overall efforts to ensure compliance.
Our first report, issued in March 1998, addressed the extent to which the Postal Service was aware of and had assessed the Y2K challenge. We found the Postal Service had been slow to recognize Y2K as a Postal-wide issue. We also noted that the Postal Service had neither comprehensive Postal-wide planning nor sufficient senior management involvement to allow for the most effective approach to solving the problem. . . .
[typical of most other organizations, BTW, except that the Postal Service is critical to the nation's functioning]
Our second report, issued in July 1998, assessed the Postal Service's preliminary progress in reviewing, correcting, and testing information systems and information technology infrastructure hardware and software. We found that:
Mainframe operating systems were not entirely Y2K compliant;
Critical information systems were not correctly identified, prioritized, or tested for Y2K compliance; and
Y2K status reporting was not always accurate. . . .
[e.g., "we found the effort was a total mess"]
We issued our most recent Y2K report this month. This report addressed the quality and reliability of Y2K information reported by the Postal Service. We found that briefings to senior management and Y2K reports designed for internal and external use were not always complete, consistent, or clear. We also found that the briefings to senior management did not include a standard report on the overall status of Y2K progress and were not provided at regularly scheduled intervals.
[The reason there was no report will turn out to be that it was impossible to collect meaningful enough data to construct a meaningful report. How bad is that?]
As a result, senior managers did not always have the information they needed to monitor Y2K progress. Because senior managers did not have this information, they lost time-critical opportunities to make important resource and budget decisions. . . .
[once again, they're toast: "time-critical", in code, means, "it's now too late"]
III. CURRENT STATUS OF THE POSTAL SERVICE'S Y2K INITIATIVE. . . .
Critical Core Business Infrastructure
Without its critical external suppliers, mail processing equipment, or adversely impacted. While the Postal Service is reporting significant progress in developing Y2K solutions for mail processing equipment, it is behind schedule in assessing the readiness of external suppliers and area facilities. . . .
External Suppliers: The Postal Service relies extensively on external suppliers that are critical to moving the mail, such as airlines, railroads, and the trucking industry. Obviously, these suppliers are also susceptible to the Y2K problem. Therefore, it is important that the Postal Service become aware of the Y2K status of suppliers to plan and minimize potential disruption in services. Postal officials started to address the supplier issue in June 1998 and, to date, have identified almost 8,000 critical suppliers. As of January 1999, the Postal Service knew the Y2K status of 349 of these 8,000 suppliers.
[... or less than 5%. The auditor is mocking the Postal Service with this statistic. You may not believe that, but it is true. She is offended here by the incompetence.]
These 8,000 suppliers can be categorized into two groups: headquarters and field.
For headquarters' suppliers, in January 1999, the Postal Service had identified 661 critical suppliers and inquired as to their Y2K readiness. Of these, 312, nearly half, did not respond to inquiries, so the Postal Service did not know their Y2K status. Of the 349 that replied, the Postal Service determined that 254 are at high risk of not being Y2K ready and 95 suppliers will be ready. Generally, the Postal Service has not developed contingency plans to address how it will move the mail if these external suppliers are not ready for the year 2000.
For field suppliers, the Postal Service also identified more than 7,200 critical suppliers that still needed to be assessed for Y2K readiness.
[.... and these guys haven't even been addressed AT ALL yet]
Because so much work remains to be done in assessing the readiness of suppliers, the Postal Service faces a significant challenge in developing contingency plans for those critical suppliers that will not be ready.
["significant challenge": again, pay attention to what comes next]
Mail Processing Equipment: The Postal Service relies extensively on mail processing equipment to sort and process millions of pieces of mail daily. The Postal Service has identified 43 types of equipment that are critical to movement of the mail. These include nationally-managed equipment, such as delivery bar code sorters, advanced facer cancellers, flat sorting machines, and large parcel sorting systems. The 43 types of equipment represent thousands of pieces throughout the country. The Postal Service has reported that Y2K solutions have been developed, or are already in place, for 39 of the 43 types of equipment. The best assurance that systems will work in the year 2000 is to test them in advance. However, Postal management initially elected to test mail processing equipment at only 3 out of more than 350 sites.
["However": again, the auditor is offended, since she knows this effort is a sham]
The remaining 4 of the 43 types represent less than a thousand pieces of equipment. According to Postal management, these four types are in the process of being assessed, reviewed, and corrected. The Postal Service has projected that all 43 systems' solutions will be in place by August 1999.
Technology-dependent Facilities: The Postal Service operates more than 38,000 facilities nationwide. . . .
As of January 1999, the Postal Service did not know the Y2K status of critical equipment in its facilities nationwide. Officials tried to determine the status of equipment starting in June 1998, but had limited success. In January 1999, the Postal Service determined that the most appropriate method for assessing equipment was to conduct a survey of the equipment within 200 "high risk" facilities. The survey is expected to be completed by June 1999. . . .
[OK, because it was too late and they don't have enough people working on it, they don't have time to figure out what will work and what won't. So, instead of testing mission-critical equipment (remember, non-mission critical was never slated to be touched), they will "survey", not test, the mission-critical equipment within 200 of their 38,000 facilities. This is another sham.]
Information Systems Area. . . .
Information Systems: As of January 1999, the Postal Service had identified 152 critical information systems. Critical systems are those crucial to the core business activities of the Postal Service. Examples of these systems include Payroll, National Change of Address, and Stamp Services.
As of January 1999, Postal managers reported that 127 of the 152 systems were reviewed, corrected, and tested at the system level. These systems still need to be certified and independently verified as Y2K compliant. Some systems will also need to undergo readiness testing. The Postal Service's initial target date for reviewing and correcting systems was September 1998. The current completion date is projected for June 1999, nine months after the original projection, which affects other information systems target dates.
[Again, the auditor is signalling us. Nine months behind at this stage is an eternity. Even if they meet June, 1999, they have already put many other information systems at risk. The auditor expresses no confidence in the June date but merely transmits it.]
According to the Postal Service, as of January 31, 1999, 41 of the 127 reviewed and corrected critical systems had been independently verified as Y2K compliant.
Contingency plans identify alternative actions in case a critical system fails, and protect the continuity of business processes. Originally, the Postal Service intended to prepare contingency plans for all 152 critical systems. Currently, the Postal Service's intentions are to develop contingency plans for key business processes. No contingency plans had been completed as of the end of January 1999.
[Get this: not only are plans not being developed for actual systems but only for "processes", but none have been completed 11 months before rollover even for processses. While the word "processes" sounds weighty, EACH of their processes relies on the correct functioning of ALL of the 152 critical systems. That's why the systems are, uh, critical.]
Data Exchanges: The Postal Service exchanges a significant amount of data internally and with external organizations, such as financial institutions, customers, transportation suppliers, meter manufacturers, and the U.S. Treasury. These data exchanges need to be assessed and certified as compliant if the Postal Service's Y2K effort is to succeed. Even if the Postal Service's critical systems are Y2K compliant, it is possible that exchange partners' systems may not be Y2K ready. As a result, the Postal Service's critical systems may be affected. For example, 5 postage meter manufacturers generate these manufacturers are transferred to the Postal Service's systems via data exchanges. The Postal Service is in the process of ensuring these very important data exchanges are Y2K ready and tested.
As of January 1999, the Postal Service had not completed its inventory of internal and external data exchanges. The Postal Service has assessed about 4,300 out of approximately 5,700 data exchanges. About 2,000 of the 4,300 data exchanges assessed have been identified as critical. As of now, 123 of the 2,000 have been reported as Y2K ready.
[They haven't even assessed almost 30% of the data exchanges. Only 2.5% are ready]
In the ten months that remain, the Postal Service must:
Identify whether the remaining 1,400 data exchanges are external or internal;
Determine if the 1,400 data exchanges are critical;
Assess the Y2K readiness of all critical data exchanges; and
Develop workarounds and contingency plans for those critical data exchanges that are not Y2K ready.
[Call the Pony Express .... there isn't time. End of story.]
Information Technology Infrastructure: The Postal Service depends on mainframe systems, midrange computers, network servers, personal computers, and telecommunications equipment. The Postal Service has been working to make this infrastructure Y2K compliant since 1996. As of January 1999, officials estimated that the Postal Service had more than 134,000 actual pieces of hardware, including about 120,000 personal computers and about 14,000 servers.
To manage the inventory, the Postal Service has categorized the hardware and software into 2,000 unique types. As of January 1999, the Postal Service reported that solutions had been developed for 1,600 of the 2,000 types of hardware and software.
[OK, pretty good .....]
Deploying the solutions will be a challenge because the Postal Service does not know which specific personal computers and servers are not Y2K compliant.
[... oops, you mean we actually have to examine and do something with the hardware itself? Why didn't anyone tell us that? Here, the auditor is employing irony under the covers.]
Postal Service officials also indicate they are currently working on solutions and workarounds for the remaining 400 types of hardware and software. Contingency plans and independent verification are in process for the information technology area, but have not been completed.
Readiness Testing: The most reliable way to ensure that the Postal Service's complex information systems and core business processes are Y2K ready is to test them before the year 2000. Officials recently elected to conduct readiness tests on information systems that drive core business processes in areas such as finance, marketing, and mail operations. Readiness testing is a high-level integrated means of ensuring that information systems, data exchanges, and the various technology elements will work together to process information in the year 2000. To date, they have not identified how many of the 152 systems drive core business processes other than in the finance area. The Postal Service has not made a final determination on the extent of readiness testing.
[In other words, they don't understand their business well enough to know what to test, when to test and what the results of the tests will mean for mail delivery next year.]
Although the Postal Service plans to complete all readiness testing for systems that drive core business processes by July 1999, a great deal of work remains, such as:
Identifying information systems that drive non-financial key core business processes;
Obtaining resources needed to conduct the tests;
Developing readiness testing plans; and
Correcting any portion of a system that fails a readiness test or developing a workaround.
[Forget the Pony Express, call the U.S. Cavalry]
Business Continuity and Contingency Planning. . . .
The last area we will discuss is business continuity and contingency planning. We believe that the Postal Service must act quickly to reduce the risk and potential negative effects of Y2K failures.
["must act quickly" is code for, "if (and it will never happen) this was treated as the number one priority by tens of thousands of Postal Service employees, it might be possible to work-around the failures that are now fore-ordained". As auditors, we always had a faint hope that the organization had a collective "brain". But, you see, organizations, by definition, don't, because they are not human in the simplest sense.]
One weak link anywhere in the chain of critical dependencies including external suppliers, business partners, and the public infrastructure could cause major disruptions in Postal Service business operations nationwide. As a result, it is imperative that continuity and contingency plans be developed and tested for all core business processes.
["imperative" means it should have been completed 12 months ago, at least]
Ten months remain to develop, implement, and test a comprehensive Y2K business continuity plan. . . .
[By citing "ten months", the auditor is saying that there isn't enough time EVEN to make a responsible continuity plan. That may be too subtle for some readers.]
The Postal Service plans to complete its business continuity and contingency plans by July 1999, and test them by August 1999.
In the remaining ten months, Postal officials must:
Document the Postal Service's core business processes;
Determine system component dependencies;
Assess risk of failure for each component, including the estimated probability and effect;
Develop business process contingency plans and develop trigger strategies;
Establish recovery teams for each critical process;
Test business process contingency plans; and
Update disaster recovery plans and procedures.
The Postal Service is faced with a formidable challenge in completing all of these tasks, and needs to continue to vigorously pursue this area. . . .
Therefore, we believe the Postal Service should immediately reevaluate the initial assessment and shift priority to issues that are absolutely necessary to ensure that core business processes work in the year 2000.
["Therefore" signals her bottom-line conclusion: IT'S TOO LATE TO FIX THE POSTAL SYSTEM SO IT WILL WORK PROPERLY. ABANDON EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE THINGS THAT WILL ENABLE IT TO SURVIVE AT ALL]
The core business processes are those that move the mail, pay employees and vendors, protect revenue, and protect the safety of employees and customers. The remaining systems and structures must still be corrected, but not until after the core business processes have been safeguarded against Y2K failures.
[Say, in 2001, if the Postal Service is still operational]
[Here are my final comments:
In ordinary life, apart from Y2K, the solution was, as we know, "move the deadline out a year, two years, five years." That is what the Postal Service itself has done for decades.
It's too late for deadline-shifting.
The USPS is going down. If we're lucky, "down" will mean a crippled operation with a big hit on national productivity minimal and consumer confidence (and, not unlike banks, consumer confidence in the mail is everything, or else, why drop a letter into the (black)mail box)?
If we're unlucky, the entire system will stop completely: this one can't be done with mailmen carrying mail on their horses between cities, states and regions. GI?
Even if the entire thread has gone over your head, focus on this one thing: the Postal Service, like the banks, HAS to function nearly perfectly to function AT ALL (because of its nearly totally automated structure). But, unlike the banks, which, right or wrong, at least CLAIM to be 95% compliant RIGHT NOW, the Postal Service is manifestly a Y2K disaster. You tell me from this auditor's analysis how compliant they are. What? You can't? Exactly. They can't even MEASURE it, they're so confused.
Apparently, someone forgot to tell them that they are a critical CONTINGENCY PLAN for our nation in 2000 (if you understand the irony of this, you will ROTF). In other words, the Postal Service will help keep the country glued together.
Now, to the reality of it, no fooling: unreliable delivery of social security, Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements, welfare and, yes, bills and invoices. Or .... no delivery. On top of unreliable COMPUTATION of those very same items by the nation's governments and businesses.
The result? Book it: national chaos, beginning about 1/15/2000.]
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 27, 1999
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