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Technology Stocks : Year 2000 (Y2K) Embedded Systems and Utilities -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (51)	8/5/1998 7:04:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 89

PacifiCorp - 'Hi folks, this is a lengthy post, but I hope to shed some light on the electric = utility issues using my project personal experiences. During the past 3 years of a total 16 year tenure, I have been the Year = 2000 Project director for a large western area electric utility = (PacifiCorp). A side note - in early February 1998, the company made an = early retirement offer that was too good to turn down, so I took it = along some 960 senior staffers. In many of my Year 2000 issues and = impacts presentations I would joking state that early retirement was = certainly one way to beat the year 2000 transition, little did I realize = I would receive that choice. Retirement is lots of fun but by mid-May I = realized that "it is better to wear out than to rust out", so I stepped = back into the fray, this time working with a local county government in = Oregon. Back to the electric utility experience - In this and a number of posts = yet to come I will share my experiences, my understandings, and my = personal conclusions on Y2k as we worked the various problems in = PacifiCorp. This particular project started in late 1995 with a staff of = one (me) pushing awareness of the business risks involved if we failed = to prepare for Y2k remediation, little did I realize at that time how = wide spread the risks would be. By February of this year the project = had grown to project teams covering four focus areas with more than 100 = staffers/contractors working a number of remediation projects. The first area of focus in 1995 was the traditional business transaction = systems - 24 million lines of code(LOCs) in several different mainframe = programming environments. We brought in Data Dimensions to conduct the = preliminary analysis and they uncovered 500,000+ date suspect LOCs. By = late 1997 three remediated applications were back in full production = (Year 2000 ready) and the remaining scoped applications are planned for = return to production by the end of 1998. Concurrently some of the = tagged applications are being replaced by purchased year 2000 capable = applications as part of a business area process improvement project. OK, = so what's next? Our second focus area (Communications and Contacts) came from an = expanding awareness of the year 2000 impact on other aspects of our = business. In this area we established the compliance, inventory and = knowledge databases which extended beyond the traditional information = technology service areas. This focus included client contacts, = compliance letter responses, partner/supply-line risk management and = continued growth of a formal "due diligence" database. Meantime the = project office staff expanded to 3 supported by 30+ Year 2000 = advocates/contacts at various sites throughout the corporation. Extra = "eyes and ears" helped spread the "stay engaged with the problem" = workload. The natural progression of our Year 2000 awareness highlighted the = embedded chips issue which became the third focus area. It was at this = point the catch phrase for the project became "we must keep the lights = on", all other efforts must be supportive of that goal. Any result less = than the catch phrase would result in disruptions to the communities, = the clients, the partners and employees of the corporation. Traditional = inventory tasks to "locate and count everything" produced lots of data = but minimal information for guiding an effective remediation effort. = Our "production line" starts with fuels (coal, water, steam, natural gas = along with some natural resources - sun, wind); moves into 69 generating = facilities; passes into the high voltage transmission systems; then = finally steps down into the local distribution systems and to each = client's location. (A major search and document effort). There are many = "trip points" throughout the system and I will expand on the "trip line" = approach in a coming post, otherwise this fairly lengthy post would go = on and on. Fourth and final area of focus, the desktops and their supporting = networks. This area comes in last because during 1996 and most of 1997 = there seemed little point in trying to select one of the ever changing = solutions before their time. Fortunately hardware solutions were covered = as part of a three year desktop technology refresh begun in 1996. = Software, well if you've spent much time in this mail list, solutions = are finally stabilizing for general use. Enough for this post - next post - generation and embedded chips.=20 Wayne Horscroft - remember "it is better to wear out than to rust out" Personal email comments and questions welcome - orkiwi@gte.net=20 ___ 'Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 13:19:39 +0100 To: year2000-discuss@year2000.com From: "Y2K Maillist (Via: Amy)" <amy@year2000.com> Save Address Block Sender Subject: Electric Utility Project - RWH 1 Reply-To: year2000-discuss@year2000.com From: "R Wayne Horscroft" <orkiwi@gte.net> To: "Y2k Mail List" <year2000-discuss@year2000.com> Subject: Electric Utility Project - RWH 1 Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 00:15:32 -0700