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This posting from Peter de Jager's Year 2000 Discussion Forum is very important. It's aimed at production managers at pharmaceutical firms. I post it here as a warning to everyone that a lot of unknown factors can create havoc. I also post it in case you know someone with authority in a pharmaceutical firm. E-mail this to him.
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Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 18:44:31 +0100 To: year2000-discuss@year2000.com From: Ian Hugo
Subject: re: Y2K: PHARMACEUTICAL & LABORATORY ISSUES
Here's some thoughts from the UK. As well as worrying about expiry dates (and date-stamping on testing, incidentally), think about embedded chips and production processes. Many drug production processes are continuous and only go offline for short maintenance periods at 1-2 year intervals because the whole plant has to be closed down. There aren't too many 2-year periods left between now and Y2K. With process control systems, you'll need one offline period to investigate impacts and a second to install and test fixes. In Europe, plant is usually shut down some time in the summer for maintenance. Summer is upon us (even if it's grey and raining outside). This is one of the 3 summers you have left, control engineers (if any of you read this list), into which to fit two routine 1-2 year maintenance stops. Think about it.
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