The Year 2000 crisis: the ongoing business
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570010286113 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| Pages | 67-75 |
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Author | Seokha Koh,Sooun Lee,David C. Yen |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
The Year 2000 crisis: the ongoing business
Seokha Koh
Chungbuk National University, The Republic of Korea
Sooun Lee
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA
David C. Yen
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA
Introduction
The year 2000 (Y2K) crisis has been perhaps
the greatest management challenge the world
has faced since World War II (The President's
Council on Year 2000 Conversion: PCY2KC,
1999). The Y2K crisis stems from the
problems that are associated with the
inability of computer/information systems
or their related components to handle date in
a proper way. At a survey administered in
February 1998, 93 percent of respondents
predicted that their organization would be
damaged by the Y2K problems if left
unaddressed (The Information Technology
Association of America, 1998). Gartner Group
also estimates that up to 90 percent of
applications software, including third party
software, have the Y2K problems which are
expected to occur heavily from 1999 (Gartner
Group, 1999; Wallace, 1998). Further, in the
same survey, 44 percent of the respondents
reported that they had already experienced
Y2K-related failures under actual operating
conditions.
The Y2K problems may be classified into
three categories: generic problems, induced
problems, and reactions of people. The
generic problems are technical and simple.
What makes the Y2K crisis serious is the size
of the problems. The enormous size of the
problems and the limited resources,
including time, allocated to the problem
make the thorough testing and remedy
neither possible nor desirable. Some
problems and defects, including the induced
ones produced in the process of fixing the
generic problems, should be allowed to
remain unresolved or fixed badly. In some
cases, partial solutions should be adopted to
save time.
The Y2K project is an ongoing business.
Partial solutions may require additional
work after the rollover of the century. Some
of the unfixed or induced defects need to be
fixed. Organizations that fail to fix the Y2K
problems properly need to prepare
themselves for litigation. Such organizations
may need to rebuild the relationship with
customers or the public. In fact, the Y2K
crisis does not end with the rollover of the
century. It will continue in many
organizations and may remain as a major
issue in our society for some time.
Generic problems
The generic Y2K problems are technical in
nature stemming from the computer
operating systems and applications storing
or handling dates with two digits for the year
(i.e. 00) rather than four (i.e. 2000). The two-
digit year in codes or data makes a century
ambiguous or inaccurate. It may raise
problems when two dates involving two
differing centuries are compared. The
ultimate and only practical solution to this
problem is to expand year fields to four
digits. It poses a formidable challenge,
however, to change every year field in the
codes and data at one time. This problem will
be discussed later in more detail.
Other date-related defects are often
discussed in the context of the Y2K. Among
them are special meanings/extended
semantics for dates, calendar errors,
incorrect representation of century in real
time clocks (RTC), and limits on date range
size. Some dates are provided with special
meaning such as ``never purge''. The most
frequently cited examples include 9/9/99,
year 99, 99/99/99, 1/1/1, 1/1/11, 6/9/69, 6/7/89,
1/23/89, 1/23/45, 6/6/66, 7/7/77, 8/8/88, and
12/31/99 (The MITRE Corporation: MITRE
1998, /docs/CRITICAL_DATES.html). They
may have been used differently with each
organization. They can bring about
unexpected results/problems to computer
systems as the date is reached.
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[ 67 ]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
100/2 [2000] 67±75
#MCB University Press
[ISSN 0263-5577]
Keywords
Systems analysis,
Systems design,
Computer disaster,
Contingency planning
Abstract
The year 2000 (Y2K) remedy
process is an ongoing business to
be continued even after the roll-
over of the century. This is espe-
cially true for the organizations
that fail to cope with the crisis
properly. In this paper, major pro-
blems associated with the crisis
are identified and key remedy
issues such as effective remedy
methods, a systematic implemen-
tation model, compliance testing,
and resource management issues
are identified and presented. Post-
millennium remedy guidelines are
also suggested, as the Y2K crisis
will be an ongoing business for
many organizations for an ex-
tended period of time after the
rollover of the millennium.
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