1999 AGN JAN 19 I24 - Laserfiche WebLink

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L' Year 2000 Issues for the Electric Utility Industry 9 Implement: Finally, execute the plan to bring plant and facility systems into compliance or at least into an acceptably survivable condition. This stage also includes testing and validation of the various conversion projects. Develop and execute detailed work plans that cover resource requirements, schedules and costs for the conversion, testing and validation, and implementation of each targeted system and component. This stage always consumes most of the available time and effort, and is essentially a series of typical systems integration projects. Consequently, good project management skills and tools become critical. WHAT ABOUT EMBEDDED SYSTEMS? Most of the operations -related Y2k assessments involve critical application software. This software can be accessed for assessment, evaluation and modification as appropriate. This software will be third -party commercial packages, PC-based appli- cations or macros, or internally developed applications or code. The languages and platforms and locations will be wide and varied, may not be documented or well- managed, and will rarely be implemented or configured consistently. However, these situations illustrate some of the reasons that operation -related Y2k is different from typical corporate Y2k efforts. TAVA/R. W. Beck, LLC's methodology and tools were developed with these reasons in mind. However, sometimes we identify critical Y2k issues within an embedded system or device. In this case, we don't have access to the programming code and must adjust our approach for evaluating, assessing, changing, testing and validating that embedded system. Because embedded system modifications are time and cost intensive, we work with our clients to execute changes on a case-by-case basis. Often, less critical embedded systems can be cost-effectively assessed as "black boxes" with observable inputs/outputs, product specification reviews, and design -level confirmations from the original 1 manufacturer. J E After a careful evaluation of the installed embedded device, the specific connection and testing strategy is developed to address the necessary Y2k-related issues. Initial examination of the existing situation can be used to establish a necessary baseline for functionality and performance. Scripts are developed to drive Y2k-related situations into the device to determine the need, if any, to remediate the device in specific ways. Then, after remediation, the same connection can be used to observe device performance in comparison to its baseline as the various scripts are used to confirnVvalidate successful Y2k-related performance. Copyright 1998, TAVA/R. W. BeckLLc A All rights reserved. (AVA RW BECK