In our December '98 newsletter, the local electric company outlined this 6 step plan for meeting the Year 2000 Challenge:

1. Assess the situation 2. Inventory systems 3. Determine potential problems 4. Repair/upgrade components 5. Test systems 6. Prepare a contingency plan.

They have only completed steps 1 and 2 and are now working on step 3. I am astonished that they are only on step 3 and expect to be finished by 12/99. They say their goal is to validate Y2K readiness by August 31, 1999. Are they one of the small businesses who has done too little too late? What are your thoughts about the chances of us having electricity on 1/2000? I plan to print responses to the thread and send them to my electric company to see if it will hurry the process up. Thank you for your comments!

-- Diane (DDEsq2002@juno.com), December 05, 1998

Answers

If the 6-step outline you give above is a literal quote from the electric company, it's much too skimpy on details. Ask them to provide much more detail on what they're doing.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), December 05, 1998.

Actually, if you discount testing, assessment takes the longest. Moreover you don't have to finish any of the steps to start working on the next - you only have to finish enough to make sure you are done with one discrete system. Then that system can be passed to the next stage - so you could have systems in all stages of remediation in any good sized company. And, of course, contingency plans can be made at any time.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 05, 1998.

Hey Diane:

According to the Sunset Reasearch Group, the various stages of Y2K projects are:

Awareness - 1% overall time/money

Inventory - 1% overall time/money

Assessment - 5%

Repair (renovation) - 2-% - 40%

Testing - 40% - 70%

Implementation - 2% - 5%

It does sound like you need more info from them One thing that is important is to find out when they started. Let's say they tell you that they started in January 1998 (for example) and by December 1998 they finished the first two steps. Look at the stages. That's 2% of the work. Extrpolate from there to get an idea. We have 13 months left.

Reference: Sunset research Group, Wichita, KS

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), December 05, 1998.

Repair is 20% - 40%.

FWIW, Mine is nowhere near ready despite a happy face insert that came with the last bill.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), December 05, 1998.

Diane,

This brings up an interesting dilemma which seems somewhat unique for power companies. I have noticed that many are only about halfway through their plans. It occurred to me that it could be very difficult, if not impossible to actually "test" some of the physical devices and controlling mechanisms (those little chips) without periodic temporary outages. So I beleive that most of these power providers are actually going to wait until the second half of '99 to do this. Much to the suprise of those who think the power won't go out until 2000, I predict we will get a tremendous assortment of outages well before that. These companies are probably going to announce around mid-'99 that we should be prepared to expect any number of temporary (but hopefully brief) outages as they do all of this switching between grids being tested. Know anyone who manufactures Surge Protectors? If they build up their inventory, they will probably get rich real quick!! Getting back to your question, it seems to me that unlike many financial-type businesses, they probably can't do much testing in early '99, especially in the NorthWest where I live, because it is COLD!!! People are going to get pissed as it is, but if they start in January . . .

-- infoman (infoman@web.com), December 05, 1998.

Diane: Another thing to find out is how much has been budgeted vs. actually spent - you should be able to find this in the SEC filing. There were some threads a week or two ago about this.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), December 05, 1998.

Diane,

Take a quick look at the Y2K status of your utility in the most recently filed quarterly SEC 10-Q report. Try: http://www.edgar- online.com/, or http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/srch-edgar.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 05, 1998.

Excuse me, I think we are using different definitions of the word 'assessment'. Hardly surprising - semantic confusion abounds in the CS field. As bad as reading Japanese some days.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 06, 1998.

Hi Diane,

I contacted my power company a few months back and received both a telephone call and a two page form letter. The phone call was to verify my address and no questions could be answered directly. The letter was disappointing. In essence, this company that is very large, had almost completed remediation on their billing and human resources systems but they were still assessing all other areas. I was shocked!.

One thing the letter made me realize is that we can lose electricity even if the power stays on. The billing systems could mistakenly shut us down as consumers or lose our records or on and on. The grid could stay up but thousands if not millions of people could lose power with these kinds of problems.

It's amazing just how many ways one can get kicked by y2k.

Mike =======

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), December 06, 1998.

I test software. About 15% - 20% of all code fixes create other bugs. It doesn't do any good to fix a Y2K-related bug at the last minute when doing so breaks some or all of the rest of the software.

Not allowing sufficient time to test fixes means potential problems are still lurking in the code, ready to bite the hand that wrote them, when the Y2K-impacted code is fixed. Better to cut meetings down to a dull roar and get on with fixing things.

Their cycle would be more realistic if it went like this:

3. Determine potential problems 4. Prepare a contingency plan. 5. Repair/upgrade components 6. Test systems 7. Repair/upgrade components again 8. Revise contingency plan.

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), December 06, 1998.

Yep Michael. The simultaneous fixing, testing and denial boggles the brain cells. Thats why I like the internet and our combined ability to put the public domain info-bytes together for a glimpse of Y2K truth or lack-of-truth trends.

Alternative anything is looking better and better.

Also did you notice the shakey ground lately in the Bay Area? Earthquake prep is a way good idea, A.S.A.P.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 06, 1998.

Diane,

Wasn't it a spokesman for a California water utility group that was highlighted on the "60 Minutes" program? I recall him saying that he felt they were making great progress...so therefore any problems that arise will be due to the power utilities failure to be ready.

I would imagine that there will be alot of passing the blame around when the outages begin. That is probably "Item #1" in every contingency plan.

Texas Terri

-- Texas Terri (TYSYM@AOL.com), December 06, 1998.

Diane:

Better hook up a generator to your treadmill. :+)

-- a (a@a-is-a.com), December 07, 1998.

You are too funny a@a. :)

Thanks for all your great input. I'm not as knowledgeable about the technical aspect of Y2K. Thanks again!

-- Diane (DDEsq2002@juno.com), December 07, 1998.

Diane: Here's the scoop PG&E printed in their weekly newsletter to its employees: October 5, 1998 - Their Y2K projects are divided into three projects: application software, embedded systems and supplier management. The business units took inventory of their application software in June. The applications were categorized according to how critical they are to sustaining PG&E's business operations. Of the 1,818 applications identified, 506 are considered critical to the business. Utility officers approved the application inventory they're responsibile for and how to address the problem. Should they repair, replace or retire the application. An inventory of all equipment containing a microchip or chip was completed on June 30, 1998. In July a "first-pass" categorization was completed for embedded systems. They determined exactly what equipment and systems were "mission-critical." In 1999 PG&E needs to verify that all of the computer systems can work together after changes are made to them. "PG&E's goal is to keep the lights on and the gas flowing," says utility program manager John Greer. "BUT THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES IN THIS GAME. PG&E's Year 2000 readiness depends, in part, upon the readiness of all the other organizations and systems that make up PG&E's business chain." For this reason, PG&E has sent Year 2000 compliance questionnaires to all critical suppliers and business partners. When asked what a PG&E employee can do to help, Chuck Schaer, Y2K project manager, says "MAKE TIME FOR US, IF SOMEONE COMES TO YOU WITH A Y2K QUESTION, RESPOND QUICKLY. GIVE IT YOUR PRIORITY. (emphasis are mine). Hope this helps. Maybe you should contact these people at PG&E that I mentioned and ask them your pertinent questions.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), December 07, 1998.

Do your Electric Companies have any agreed service levels that they say they'll provide, eg to fix a fault within a certain period.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), December 07, 1998.