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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Woas who wrote (1630)	5/4/1998 10:16:00 AM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

Steve, <Last week a source at a north London hospital disclosed that an operation had to be postponed because the computer system told doctors that the swabs needed during the surgery were out of stock. In fact there were plenty available. The confusion occurred because the swabs had a use-by date early in the next millennium. Instead of reading the date as 2001, the computer could recognise only the last two digits and believed the date to be 1901.> Interesting point about the "use by" date. Just checked my notes from NYC conference. I had incorrectly assumed that big problems would not be occurring on plant floors until late 99. Apparently problems will happen MUCH sooner. V.P. Kraft Foods said "massive" problems will start occurring January 1, 1999 ... because of date codes. From the time a raw material is ordered/delivered from an outside supplier ... until finished product is on grocery shelf ... a future date is assigned that travels back & forth and thru 10 different stages and departments - most within the company, but some also with outside suppliers: - Product Safety - Applied Nutrition - Corporate Purchasing - Finance - Quality Assurance - Marketing - Manufacturing - Logistics - Product Management - Product Research - Corporate Microbiology - Transportation/Distribution - Consumer Center Many of these dates are more than 1 year into the future. So, in January '99 ... the 2000 future date will be used extensively. This is when he expects the "massive" problems to start occurring. Some 2000 future dates have already been introduced into the system. Not many. But, they've already run into some of the problems which will occur in full force later. A lot of industries (and hospitals) will be running into the same problem. Cheryl