Rick,

You were quoted last year as followes:

" Rick Cowles, who reports on the electric utility industry, said at the end of February: "Not one electric company [that he had talked to] has started a serious remediation effort on its embedded controls. Not one. Yes, there's been some testing going on, and a few pilot projects here and there, but for the most part it is still business-as-usual, as if there were 97 months to go, not 97 weeks."

I have heard little of any testing for embedded sytems particularly in the gas and coal fired power plants, in spite of all the proclamations of 'y2k readiness'

Have they indeed tested the embedded systems to justify these proclamations?

-- Anonymous, August 23, 1999

Answers

Note: I forgot to mention, this quote was from July 98.

-- Anonymous, August 23, 1999

xBob - I just looked at my calendar - I made that statement back in February, 1998, and it was true at the time. The electric industry (and in fact, all business environments using microprocessor based control systems) had pretty much just begun to scratch the surface and understand the impact of Y2k on these systems. EPRI had just held its second embedded systems seminar in Atlanta (I spoke at that one).

We've learned a lot since that time.

I suppose I can quickly sum up the concerns raised by xBob as:

• It is, in many cases, difficult (if not impossible) to do end-to-end testing in large scale control systems. It can be done, however. I've seen this accomplished most successfully in the pharmaceutical industry, where validated systems are the name of the game. Even where it has been accomplished, there is a potential in a complex control system for something to have been missed.

• It is impossible to get a statistical handle on failure rates and failure modes. Some companies are reporting high failure rates. Some companies are reporting little or no date impact on microprocessor based control systems. This validates what I've been saying all along: that each company unique, and that the impact on each company in terms of time and resources required to ferret out the "bad actors" will be unique. But my point is that most electric companies have been beating the bushes trying to find the problems. My impression is that some have been more diligent than others in this task. Again, this is not unique to the electric industry.

I'll try to add some more thoughts to this thread later in the day. The bottom line is that the first true end-to-end Y2k test in any microprocessor based control system, regardless of the industry, will most likely occur between 12/31/1999 and 1/1/2000. ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 23, 1999