Whirlpool Corp. said it plans to close at least one plant in the coming year as part of a corporatewide restructuring brought on by slumping appliance sales.

And Y2K distribution glitches!

Evansville Courier & Press

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 25, 2001

Answers

Spider,

This is a question, not an answer. Wasn't Whirlpool one of several companies zapped by y2k compliant software obtained to replace their noncompliant systems? Others as I recall included MultiFoods, Hershey and Royal Doulton. The latter now bankrupt.

Nice to know y2k was a non event.

WRK Sedona

-- Warren Ketler (wrkttl@earthlink.net), January 25, 2001.

Exactly, the companies you listed and some others had problems associated with rushed Y2K-induced "upgrades" to Enterprise Resource Planning software, specifically ERP packages made by SAP. Some of those companies survived--so far--after sweating a bit and looking like fools, e.g. Hershey Foods; others did worse, especially Royal Doulton. (Not suggesting that the SAP software fiasco accounts for all badness in the world, but consider it from a "straw-breaking- camel's-spine" perspective...)

I'm sure this must be mentioned in the archives here, and it was discussed elsewhere such as Cory Hamasaki's WRP newsletter (see archived WRPs at the bottom of http://www.kiyoinc.com/current.html). Sorry I don't have time to be more specific right now.

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), January 25, 2001.

Andre, Thanks much for the confirmation. Interesting you should mention Cory Hamasaki. He hinted Zerox (sic) might have suffered from same problem in his last post. The next one scheduled for late Nov has yet to be seen. Hope he is OK.

Warren Ketler

-- Warren Ketler (wrkttl@earthlink.net), January 25, 2001.

Andre is correct. Here's a link from the Archives.

Whirlpool whipped by Prudential

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 25, 2001.

Warren, Cory hasn't been writing the WRPs lately but he is still alive and kicking. He manages and contributes almost daily to a reasonably active listserv which you can get starting from the hotlink on his main page:

http://www.kiyoinc.com/current.html

When you click on:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-y2k-WRP/join

You get sent to a Yahoo site to sign up (choose the digest option!):

"You've been invited to join a free email group hosted at Yahoo! Groups. Here's its description:

dc-y2k-WRP

"Discuss life and technical issues. This list is a adjunct to cory hamasaki's DC Weather Report. Get the real story from the DC Weather Report. Suitable topics are technical, preparedness, community, sharing news items about government actions and recommendations. Other issues covered are programming, consulting, and contracting, and preparing for exceptional events. Humor, insight, irony, parody, and information on all aspects of life and self sufficiency are welcome. All are welcome but flames and namecalling must be done with humor. We need each other."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-y2k-WRP/join

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), January 26, 2001.

In fact, I just found the latest digest from Cory's newsgroup in my in-box, with the direct sign-up link in the header:

"The DC Weather Reports - Helping People Understand and Prepare.

Please forward interesting issues to your friends.

They can get their own subscription by sending email to

dc-y2k-WRP-subscribe@egroups.com

Thanks for your support. http://www.kiyoinc.com/current.html "

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), January 26, 2001.