Safety and the year 2000

This new report from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is intended to help users of software-based equipment understand the problem associated with the year 2000 and to provide them with a strategy for tackling it.

Although the problem is real, its extent and possible effects for safety-related control systems can only be established through thorough investigation. A reasoned approach is essential to solving the problem. To do nothing in the hope that there will not be an increased risk to health and safety is not an option. The message from this report is to begin your investigation without delay.

The effect on safety
In most engineering , production and manufacturing environments, a variety of systems are used to plan, measure, store information, control processes and to keep them safe. These systems are often referred to as 'real time' systems because data (events) are processed as they occur, the results being available immediately. Quite often such systems are linked together by communications networks which means that information is shared and used for different purposes. When such information is both time or date-dependent and important for the safe operation of a process or machine, then safety becomes an issue at year 2000. Also, the correct operation of a safety system which is itself resilient to the 'Year 2000 Problem' may still be affected by the failure of a subsidiary system to which it is linked.

Read Health and Safety Executive article

-- Bill (billdale@lakesnet.net), March 15, 1998