ON THE CONVERSION OF THE I.T. SYSTEMS TO
THE YEAR 2000
ROME, JUNE 17-18, 1999
ACEA S.p.A. and the Year 2000 Problem
Ing. Giuseppe Noia
FOREWORD
As we know, the Year 2000 Problem may affect all of the technology systems which use hardware and software components for their functioning.
ACEA S.p.A., as an utility operating mainly in the management of grid services connected with the supply of local public services within the Municipality of Rome (Comune di Roma) and other neighbouring municipalities, is dealing with the problem as an absolute priority in order to assure that neither service supply nor internal business operations be impaired by date values at any time prior, during and after the Year 2000.
1. MISSION BUSINESS OF ACEA S.p.A.
ACEA S.p.A. operates, even through its participated companies of the ACEA Group, mainly in the Energy and the Water/Environment sectors with 1998 revenues of ab. 780 billion ($ 440 million) and 470 billion ($260 million) Liras respectively.
With regard to the former, the Company provides bulk power generation and distribution (high voltage) and secondary distribution (medium-low voltage) to the Municipality of Rome and the adjoining municipalities of Fiumicino, Guidonia and Formello, serving ab. 1,500,000 users, with a market share over 50% (or ab. 770,000 user contracts) in the Municipality of Rome and over 4,300 GWh distributed, 1,000 of which are self-produced. ACEA S.p.A. also operates public lighting (functional, monumental, perpetual) for the entire Municipality of Rome and provides central heating service to some of the city areas.
In the Water/Environment sector the Company operates in the catchment, transportation and distribution of drinking water for the Municipality of Rome. It also supplies water to 59 Municipalities in the Provinces of Rome and Rieti, through a drinking water grid totalling 6,000 Km and ab. 3,000,000 people served (over 200,000 user contracts). In addition, ACEA S.p.A. manages secondary water systems (watering systems, drinking fountains, fire hydrants) and the water treatment service for the Municipality of Rome which, together with the service provided for the Municipality of Fiumicino, accounts for 2,600,000 pop. served and a water treatment capacity over 20 cubic meters/second through a 700 Km sewage grid.
54% of 1998 revenues were accounted for in the energy sector, while 38% came from the water sector and 6.6% from public and artistic lighting.
Evidently, the possibility that after December 31, 1999 business system operations might be impaired, thus affecting normal service supply, calls for ACEA to field effective remediation measures. Each branch of company operations employing electronic equipment may be affected by the problem since data processing that uses chronological criteria is among information systems most used functions. At the same time, ACEA S.p.A. is committed to verifying its product and/or service suppliers's compliance.
The ultimate goal of ACEA S.p.A.'s remediation effort is that of guaranteeing continuity of service to citizens/customers/users.
2. ACEA S.P.A.'s ACTION PLAN
The Year 2000 Problem (Y2K) affects the whole of the ACEA Group in that every single technology system and hardware and software component is potentially affected.
The procedure generally adopted by the companies to tackle the problem, provides for the installation of an internal committee for the coordination of a global "Year 2000 Conversion" project, wherein single managements will respond of the systems within their own sector.
In the last few months, as a consequence of growing awareness, fresh legal requirements were introduced which ACEA must adhere to, namely:
ACEA has established a Year 2000 Committee composed of the directors of involved operation units (O.U.). For project coordination, supervision and reporting activities, the Committee has appointed a Year 2000 Work Unit composed of:
The following areas have also been identified within the Company to require assessment, monitoring and action:
As for the first two, plant process management systems (central and peripheral automated control, local control and automation, smoke detection and fire fighting, video-surveillance, monitoring and reading) are certainly the most critical; for these ACEA has long been working to assure date change conformity.
As for main management (accounting, personnel, logistics and user contracts, contract and invoice forms) and technical (power and water help-desk, plant systems) systems for which awareness was already high, the Year 2000 Work Group has verified the information system re-design plan that was completed in December 1998, by which all system programs have been re-written using four digit date control common routines. Personal Computer remediation, as we shall see, is a far more complex issue as these are widely spread throughout the Company.
2.1 ENERGY SYSTEM AND WATER/ENVIRONMENT SYSTEM
As for the main production processes--energy and water/environment systems--two were the main activities: a) on-site assessment (60 and 20 respectively) af all of the automated control and local automation systems; b) detailed inventory of all of the system hardware and software equipment.
Following the assessment, supplier were asked to produce either compliance certification or, as an alternative, date change conversion and testing schedule.
In general, remediation activities included:
Activities as per item 3 have been completed and those as per item 4, 5 and 6 are in progress and are expected to be completed by Fall, 1999 for both systems. In particular, as regards power grid automated control (Energy System), conversion is expected to be completed by Summer, 1999.
2.2 MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
As for the Management System, following the 1998 re-design plan completion, a new conversion cycle is being implemented with the progressive adoption of Enterprise Resouce Planning technologies (SAP in particular), starting with accounting and logistics systems. Such an evolution, deriving from business choices indipendent of the (Year 2000) Issue and which, for the logistics, will be completed after the date change, will assure the overcoming of similar problems even for the systems of new generation.
In March, an entire mainframe system was dedicated to a date change drill for three weeks. Management systems using critical dates (01/01/2000, 29/02/2000, 01/01/2001) have shown marginal problems (solved in a few weeks) related with some printing and transactions in the personnel and logistics information systems.
In addition to those already mentioned, a host of local systems exist, mainly locally developed (protocols, mailing, archives, Severance Bonus calculation (T.F.R.), legal filing etc...) or externally acquired (monetary adjustment, cost control, etc...) which do not raise major functionality and operational concern. These are being assessed and a mere application software patch is expected to be required.
Under a stricter operational profile, ACEA S.p.A.'s remediation plan includes the following steps:
Given the limited extent of program conversion, conversion work is being carried out using mainly internal resources.
In the inventory phase, the following were considered: a) hardware system (mainframe, front end processors, department processors, server, P.C. assets); b) DBMS Oracle and operation systems (GCOS8, AIX, Windows 95/98, MS-DOS, WindowsNT, SCO Unix); c) and application software, limited to main sub-systems (user, pre-user, personnel, logistics, accounting, power help-desk, water help-desk, plants, public lighting systems).
2.3 COMPANY-WIDE INFORMATION AND AUXILIARY SYSTEMS
As for Personal Computer and auxiliary system assets, the situation is more varied and complex due to the high number of different models, and requires detailed assessment and closer monitoring of the systems in use. To date, 800 personal computers which can operate in a management system "terminal emulation" mode have been successfully checked for compliance. It must be noted that, as of 1998, all newly acquired personal computers are expressely "Year 2000 Certified" by the supplier. For the remaining 800 PCs not connected to management systems, a gradual replacement of non-compliant units is underway. These activities are expected to be completed next November. Indeed, PC turn over is part of the Company's systematic replacement program (for aging and obsolescence) based on a 5 years write-off cycle (350 PCs/year). The 1999 budget allows for an accelerated replacement rate (acquisition of 500 new machines).
Among auxiliary systems, the following are at an advanced conversion stage:
CONCLUSIONS
ACEA S.p.A. is monitoring with extreme attention its operating system conversion for the criticalities caused by the "Millennium Bug". To this purpose, the Company is effectively working to keep date change foreseeable risks to a minimum, in order to assure regular and continuous service operation.
Undergoing work for its main sector and activities will be completed before year end. As it is widely know, the complexity of the supply-chain makes it impossible to achieve a "Year 2000 Compliance" coverage, but the efforts deployed to contain potential effects will contribute to such a level of confidence as to allow us to look forward to a "Peaceful New Year's Eve", even through the preparation of adequate "Contingency Plans".