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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Tokyo Joe's Cafe / Anything goes -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TokyoMex who wrote (1576)	3/23/1998 8:15:00 AM
From: TokyoMex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34592

Year 2000 Problem Could Cost General Motors $500 Million THE WALL STREET JOURNAL DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. disclosed that it expects to spend $360 million to $500 million -- most of it this year -- to fix its year 2000 computer problems in factories, engineering labs and offices around the world. The GM estimate underscores that the manufacturing sector is up against costs on the same scale as those being outlined by banks and financial-services concerns in recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The GM disclosure came in an SEC filing. "Anyplace you have a computer chip or a robot, you have a question to ask," says Joel Goldhammer, the head of consulting group A.T. Kearney's year 2000 practice. In the auto industry, he said, the size of the problem depends on how much automation a manufacturer has, when the automation was updated and how many desktop and other computers are in use. The problem involves old software in which the year 2000 could be misread as 1900, causing computer malfunctions. In the past few weeks, Citicorp reported that its costs may hit $600 million; Chase Manhattan Corp., $250 million; J.P. Morgan & Co., $250 million; Bankers Trust New York Corp., $180 million to $230 million; and BankAmerica Corp., about $380 million. The banking and financial-services industries are heavily computerized. Chrysler Corp. and Ford Motor Co. said they aren't disclosing how much they expect to spend on the same issue, arguing that the amounts aren't expected to be "material." However, both companies as well as GM said they are pursuing aggressive programs intended to update all their software by the end of 1998 so that they will have a full year of operational testing before Jan. 1, 2000. Nearly all the machines in modern auto factories rely on computers in some way, and nearly all engineering, design and testing functions -- including complex crash tests -- are performed on computers. Robert J. Eaton, the chairman of Chrysler, said in a recent interview that the No. 3 auto maker is well advanced in tracking down year 2000 problems. He described how engineers have been checking their fixes and looking for unanticipated problems by changing the dates in the computers of a given plant during a weekend and then watching to see what happens. A Chrysler spokeswoman observed that the company has been making a point of addressing the issue since the late 1980s as it retooled its factories and upgraded its computers. She said Chrysler integrated its efforts with suppliers two years ago. In its SEC filing, No. 1 auto maker GM said it spent about $40 million in 1997 assessing the scope of its problem and launching its remediation program. A spokesman said the company had teams doing risk assessment and inventories of issues at all of its far-flung operations. "Anything that has electronic controls or a microprocessor could be a problem, including elevators and security systems," John Ahearne, the GM spokesman, said. Mr. Ahearne added that GM also is working with its dealers and with its thousands of suppliers. He said the big push to implement corrections this year will rely mostly on GM's own engineers. "This is not a computer problem; it is a business-continuity problem," Mr. Ahearne said. In its annual SEC filing, No. 2 Ford said that it has set up "accelerated conversion centers" in various regions of the globe to address its year 2000 issues and that it expects to have the needed modifications made by the end of this year. GM, Chrysler and Ford all said they have concluded that the year 2000 issue isn't likely to have any effect on the operational safety of their cars and trucks. Even though microprocessors have become central to engine, transmission and braking functions in recent years, these computers generally rely on engine cycles or time elapsed since a vehicle was started rather than on any particular date, Ford said.