To: C.K. Houston who wrote (8023 ) 12/31/1997 7:04:00 AM From: C.K. Houston Respond to
But for all the innovation and productivity of manufacturing companies today, Y2K is set to sound a discordant note among plant managers more attuned to highly orchestrated plant operations. Two tiny digits may cause havoc among major production systems. But unlike payroll, accounting or customer service, when production lines stop running, revenues stop flowing. And that's the point at which, for many manufacturers, the fat lady sings. Clearly, there's much at stake. So why does the scope of so many corporate Year 2000 programs stop at the factory gate? Why don't plant engineers-technical people to the core--respond immediately to a major technical threat in their midst? Why is the Y2K marketplace focused so completely on legacy administrative systems? Why are manufacturer's so slow to respond to a clear and present business danger? Ken Owen (Now TPRO VP, Business Development) tried to answer these and other questions for an SPG conference audience last week (July '97) in Chicago. Fluor Daniel is an $11 billion worldwide engineering construction company building a unique and much needed presence in the Y2K marketplace among industrial clients. According to Owen, there is a huge amount of software in plants and factories which is largely flying under the radar of many corporate Y2K efforts. And then there's that other issue.in the manufacturing environment, the Year 2000 looms both big and ugly. A single industrial plant is often honeycombed with date dependent systems. At the high end, plant management systems perform advanced planning, supply chain management, production scheduling, asset management (equipment maintenance), enterprise resource planning, and shop floor transactions. Quality management systems may be conducting in-line and end of line product testing. Process engineering may be performing document management and perhaps even on-the-fly process modeling. At ground level, process information management systems are used to control instrumentation, machinery, and robotics as well as the plant environment, waste management, regulatory monitoring, facilities and the like. Think of a modern factory as one big clock. Dates are gathered and stored by data collection systems, used to calibrate and turn equipment off and on, to set production cycles, to create product records, to schedule equipment maintenance, and to timestamp products. Owen says big gets even bigger as companies operate multiple plants, in numerous geographic locations, with different manufacturing operations and varying levels of manufacturing complexity. comlinks.com
