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Technology Stocks : Year 2000 (Y2K) Embedded Systems & Infrastructure Problem -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (268)	3/24/1998 5:14:00 AM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 618

The real issue is that it's extraordinarily difficult to test this kind of equipment From: "Ind, Stephen B" To: "'Year2000 DISCUSS'" <year2000-discuss@year2000.com> Subject: RE: Embedded Chips: Why the secrecy? Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 09:40:29 -0000 <snip> From: Financial Solutions Ltd To: year2000-discuss@year2000.com Subject: Embedded Chips: Why the secrecy? Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:12:19 +-1200 Fellow newsgroup readers: I have been trying to get examples of embedded systems failure so that I can explain to manufacturing companies the implications of what can go wrong. I'm finding examples are very few which is possibly understandable as we haven't got to the critical dates as yet. But, I would have thought we would have examples by now due to: a) The current testing effort that is apparently underway by a large number of companies b) Failures caused by dates incorrectly set by chip manufacturers and subsequently used in systems where dates are not used and therefore the chip date not reset. c) Manufacturers of chips with known problems coming forward with this information. <unsnip> Jocelyn: BP has been looking at the issues on engineering process control since late 1996. The Y2K industry calls this whole area "embedded chips" when the concern is really the way in which an application - any software running on any hardware - controls physical operations such as the smelter you mention. The concern is to find any such application which is date-sensitive and might not function normally. We do have a very small number of examples of failures of PLCs - the devices which exercise local control of physical devices such as compressors and pumps. Everyone in the oil industry has seen the Shell video of failures of 3 or 4 devices which control some simple operations. Why haven't other instances been publicised? Partly because the most direct way to find them is to ask the suppliers, who won't necessarily co-operate if we are likely to then denounce them to the world. One of our examples was a plastics extruder which would cause one of our plants to shutdown - no safety implications but a significant cost implication. Finding that one example and avoiding the shutdown probably paid for the Y2K work on the plant. You discount the smelter because it's a normal software issue - that fits my understanding too, but the concern is the overall relationship between control software (running on boxes which don't always look like computers) and physical control processes. The real issue is that it's extraordinarily difficult to test this kind of equipment (hardware and software) and to understand the impact of any failures; and that the impacts are totally different from one plant to another. This means that the few minor examples we've found have no statistical relevance to the wider world, and that you have to examine each plant configuration in order to understand your exposure. I wish that I could find a way to save money by getting off this particular treadmill, but so far, I can't. The burden of proof (or of adequate levels of confidence) is quite high when you're running plant which boils hydrocarbons (or say, melts aluminium) as a matter of daily routine, and - once you've got comfort on the safety concerns - still costs millions if you have an unplanned shutdown. If you're just making plastic toys or filling food cans you can maybe live with the process control issues: low risk, low impact? In the same way, we are spending much less on building management systems and similar over-worked examples. Stephen Ind Millennium IT Project Manager BP's Millennium intrAnet site is gbc.bpweb.bp.com and the Internet site is bp.com

To: John Mansfield who wrote (268)	3/26/1998 2:03:00 AM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 618

Again the elevator example; now from Rick Cowles Fred, This is from a recent posting in the euy2k.com open forum - I'm following up to ascertain the validity, but it's quite interesting: >Although I do not have a written review of the test conducted at the World Trade Center, the >test example was presented at a recent Year 2000 forum that my manager and I attended. >Recently the facilities and operations group at the World Trade Center, ran year 2000 tests on >2 of their main elevators. They rolled the internal clock, the elevator went up, came down and >turned itself off. When they went back into the system to turn the clock back to present time, >the embedded chip would not take. What was supposed to be a 2 hour test, turned into a >lengthly night run to remove the embedded chip, find a replacement and set the new embedded >chip before the work day began. For clarity and details about the test procedures that they >used, I would advise contacting the World Trade Center directly. If this turns out to be the real deal, would this be the 'smoking gun' you're looking for? -- Rick Cowles "Electric Utilities and Y2k" x10.dejanews.com