Will EU equipment vendors be able to deliver in time for full deployment, implementation and testing?

All indications are that the power utilities are only now really getting rolling with their Y2K programs. For the sake of argument let's assume they all finish their assessment by 1/1/1999. Whether the plant is a power generating station, energy management system, HVDC bridge, or other they all discover that the problem isn't that bad. They need to upgrade some PC BIOSs, replace some PCs, upgrade and remediate some mainframe software, replace a few PLCs, upgrade some industry specific black boxes and replace some industry specific black boxes.

My question is this, when 7800+ plants place their modest POs for a few pieces of equipment from ABB, Honeywell, Bently-Nevada, Elsag-Bailey, et al., are these companies going to be able to deliver in a timely fashion? Will each plant be able to deploy, implement and test the newly configured system in time?

A simple example scenario:

If each power plant needs to replace only one critical piece of equipment, and that piece of equipment is only available from a single vendor, say ABB or Bently-Nevada, can said vendor produce and deliver 7800 units of that piece of equipment in 6 months (from 1/1999 to 6/1999)?

I'm assumming that there is not a lot of inventory of these types of products. 7800 in 6 months is 1300 per month or 60 units per work day. Are these companies set up for this level of production?

Curious minds need to know.

--AJ

-- Anonymous, September 24, 1998

Answers

All the mission critical systems (Hardware and Software) are supplied by multiple vendors from all over the world. Most of these systems require only a software patch for Y2k remediation and this will not be a demand supply problem. You can try looking at the web pages of major equipment suppliers like ABB Power Generation, Siemens Generation, Honeywell, Bently Nevada, General Electric, Elsag Bailey, Cegelec, Westinghouse Electric. They all require only software patch

The NERC Y2k website has a 44 page inventory of equipment commonly used in utilities. This inventory gives a good idea about the kind of mission critical systems that are used.

-- Anonymous, September 24, 1998