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Year 2000 Issues for the Electric Utility Industry 3 <br />THE COST OF Y2K COMPLIANCE <br />According to Advanced Manufacturing Research (AMR), a Boston-based research firm, <br />early evidence indicates that the price tag for addressing Y2k problems for a <br />manufacturing organization at the plant level may be at least half of what a company <br />spends to fix its overall data -center issues. The same costs will apply to electric <br />utilities, which have similar numbers of time -sensitive electronic controls. Furthermore, <br />if only corporate systems Y2k difficulties are addressed, the "ripple effect" from <br />problems at plant sites, with business partners, and with customers can still cause a year <br />2000 "meltdown." <br />OPERATING SYSTEMS <br />Y2k problems affect operating systems. These operating systems include <br />■ operation centers, ■ relay centers, <br />■ warehouses, ■ automated switching equipment, and <br />■ distributed control centers, ■ any other system, which processes <br />■ site control rooms, time -dependent information or <br />■ "smart" data processors, makes switching decisions. <br />Figure 2 shows the types of systems that are found within the operations side of the <br />organization. <br />0 <br />_Z <br />rX <br />W <br />W <br />_Z <br />0 <br />Z <br />W <br />'.Ocher"iexteriidl" I� <br />tin <br />interFaces <br />Figure 2 - Utility Operational Systems <br />Copyright 1998, TAVA/R. W. BeckL,L,c <br />All rights reserved. NAVA R.WBECK <br />