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

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (313)	4/7/1998 10:38:00 AM
From: Colin Christie	Respond to of 618

Hmmm... and the FAA has about 40 IBM-3083 mainframes to replace in about a year?!! ------------------------------------ Tuesday April 7, 5:31 am Eastern Time UK MPs hit out at delays in new air traffic system LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - A committee of members of parliament on Tuesday called for an independent audit into whether Britain should scrap a plan to update its air traffic control system, after repeated delays caused by software problems. The House of Commons Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee said in a report that a new traffic control centre at Swanwick in southern England, given the go-ahead in 1988, was due to open in 1996 but was still not in operation. The software contract, originally awarded to International Business Machines Corp(IBM - news), passed in 1994 to Loral Space and Communications Systems, which was acquired by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT - news) in 1996. It said the Civil Aviation Authority's National Air Traffic Services (NATS) had failed to meet every target it had set for opening the Swanwick centre and was still unable to give a firm assurance about an opening date. ''It seems that either the original specifications for the system at Swanwick were wrong or that changes to the specifications have hindered it being brought into operation,'' the report said. It said an independent audit should be held, with a short and definite time limit, to see if the software at Swanwick can be made to work or should be abandoned, and answer other questions. It also recommended that the contract for a new air traffic control centre in Scotland should not be signed until the problems at Swanwick were sorted out. Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management, responsible for the Swanwick software, with Bovis Homes Group Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BVS.L) forms part of the SkySolutions consortium, which is the preferred bidder for the Scottish centre. On Monday, Lockheed Martin said it had successfully completed a full test of the system at Swanwick, with a full configuration of 194 workstations connected to live radar. It said NATS would assess the results of the test within two weeks. John Stewart of Lockheed Martin told Reuters the company felt the committee report had been rather overtaken by events. He acknowledged there had been problems with the software but said the proposed audit could well result in further delays. ''It was a bigger job than we thought. It was a fixed price contract and we have absorbed the extra cost,'' he said. ''This contract involves 2.3 million lines of computer code, 23 major subsystems, five major subcontractors and 25 million hours of work.'' The Swanwick centre will cost 339 million pounds ($562.3 million), of which 163 million is the cost of the system. NATS told the committee in November that all but 20 million of this had already been paid. The committee expressed concern over the implications for air safety, pointing out that UK air traffic control had handled just over a million aircraft movements in 1989 which rose to well over 1.5 million in 1997.

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (313)	4/27/1998 2:03:00 PM
From: Bill Ounce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 618

NPR Y2k Piece - Electric Utilities (RealAudio online) Embedded systems overview in the electrical power industry from NPR. "Nobody can make guarantees at this point". [mainly for legal reasons.] Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 Subject: Re: NPR Y2k Piece - Electric Utilities Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:10:26 In article <3544ffae.991435@enews.newsguy.com>, rcowles@waterw.com wrote: > > NPR ran a piece this weekend on Y2k and electric utilities. You can hear > it at: > > npr.org > > ...if you have the RealAudio plugin. It's a "must hear" for the denial heads. > > -- > Rick Cowles (Public PGP key on request) > Now Shipping: "Electric Utilities and Y2k" - The Book > euy2k.com > WOW! 6+ minutes of solid factual Y2k-in-your-face on "All things considered"! (Wish it hadn't been the weekend edition though) I'm not gonna wait till Sunday to put this link in the FAQ, thanks for posting it Rick. -- Pam Unofficial c.s.y2k FAQ computerpro.com

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (313)	4/30/1998 10:48:00 AM
From: Bill Ounce	Respond to of 618

World Oil Features: Will the millennium bug give your operations the flu? gulfpub.com [...] PROCESS CONTROLLER CONCERNS Unlike the software of a marketing system, the embedded logic on a silicon chip is entombed deep in the system and not easily ascertained. Any given Distributed Control System (DCS) or Process Logic Controller (PLC) computer board has many chips, and their interdependencies on each other, and on other system components, make them difficult to analyze and repair, Fig. 1. Methods for analyzing this equipment are only now emerging. Compliance information coming from manufacturers has been sketchy and sometimes inaccurate. In some cases, the chips are no longer made. In others, the controller is manufactured in such a way that the entire unit must be replaced. Upgraded chips and new controllers also would have to be tested to ensure that their insertion will not impact drilling and production processes negatively. Some studies suggest that there may not be enough manufacturing capacity to just replace all affected chips in less than two years. Few organizations have recognized the full potential for possible failure in embedded systems. Moreover, the supply of talent qualified to identify and correct these problems is being consumed quickly by other year 2000 projects. The longer that production managers wait, the less the likelihood that they will be able to affect the outcome pragmatically. It is estimated that the average oil and gas firm, starting today, can expect to remediate less than 30% of the overall potential failure points in the production environment. This reality shifts the focus of the solution away from trying to fix the problem, to planning strategies that would minimize potential damage and mitigate potential safety hazards. S [...] On a Friday night less than two years from now, a tsunami will build in the Pacific and roll westward through all major hydrocarbon producing fields before reaching Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. We know the exact date, not to mention the hour, minute and second. We do not know its size. As with all tidal waves, it is safer to take precautions and move out to sea, where its arrival may not even be noticed. Disaster strikes those who are unprepared and caught near shore. There is little time left to mobilize, so to speak, and move the world's huge oil and gas fleet to the safety of the sea.