ML20247L827
| ML20247L827 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/14/1998 |
| From: | Shirley Ann Jackson, The Chairman NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Horn S, Maloney C HOUSE OF REP. |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9805260083 | |
| Download: ML20247L827 (11) | |
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UNITED STATES o
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION g
j WASHINGTON, D.C. 20666-0001 e
/-
May 14, 1998 CHARMAN The Honorable Stephen Hom, Chairman Subcommittee on Govemment Management, Informati,on and Technology Committee on Govemment Reform and Oversight United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515-6143
Dear Mr. Chairman:
In response to your request of May 20,1997, I am enclosing the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) May 1998 quarterly report on the Year 2000 as submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
We continue to make considerable progress in addressing our Year 2000 problem according to plan. One additional mission-critical system in the ' replace" category has been implemented
'since the last reporting period. Parallel work is being completed on four of the five remaining mission-critical systems that still need repair or replacement, and they are on target to meet the OMB schedule. Progress on the one remaining system is dependent on receiving Year 2000-compliant software from a commercial source. Contingency plans are in place in the unlikely event that the scheduled implementation on October 31,1998, is not met because the vendor fails to supply the Year 2000-compliant products.
We have also made significant progress on our other than mission-critical systems. In our last report we informed you that we had further defined our non-mission-critical systems into two categones, business-essential and non-critical, for the purpose of making explicit decisions about establishing priorities (triage).
Since our last report we have renovated an additional 13 business-essential systems. Our current status is as follows:
48 %
business-essential systems renovated 36 %
undergoing renovation 16 %
scheduled for renovation l
More than half of our renovated systems have also been validated and implemented.
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9805260083 990514 I,O PDR COMMS MtCC CORRESPONDENCE PDR t.1
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2 Progress has also been made in the non-critical category for those systems that are needed because of their relationship with business-essential systems. We have renovated an j
additional 7 systems since our last report and the current status is as follows:
29 %
non-critical systems renovated i
12%
undergoing renovation 59 %
scheduled for renovation.
More than half of our renovated systems have also been validated and implemented.
With respect to our regulatory responsibilities, we recognize the importance of close and ongoing interactions with NRC's licensees in addressing the Year 2000 computer problem. On May 11,1998, we issued a letter concerning the Year 2000 problem to licensed utilities with operational nuclear power plants and plan to issue a similar letter to fuel cycle licensees and certificate holders by the er'd of May 1998. The letters will require these licensees to inform the NRC of steps they have taken or will take to ensure that they are effectively addressing the Year 2000 problem and their facilities will be Year 2000 ready.
The NRC continues to support the efforts of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion and is a member of the Energy Working Group. We are working closely with representatives from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy to give assistance with, and share information on, potential problems associated with the Year 2000.
The NRC's Deputy Executive Director for Regulatory Programs represents the agency on the President's Council.
Our Chief Information Officer (ClO) continues to coordinate weekly with NRC senior executives and staff at all levels to ensure that they continue to maintain a high level of awareness of Year 2000 issues and that progress in meeting our renovation, validation, and implementation deadlines does not slip. Monthly Year 2000 status reports from agency offices and weekly status reports from the ClO's Year 2000 Program staff show that we are presently ahead of plan in addressing Year 2000 systems problems.
If you would like a more in-depth discussion of our continued progress with the Year 2000 Program, the agency's CIO and our Year 2000 Program Manager are available to meet with you and members of your staff at your convenience.
l Sincerely, 1
Enclosure:
Quarterly Report for May 1998 1
_a
/
UNITED STATES 0*,
4 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION E-o WASHINGTON, D.C. 2055!M001 5
E k..... pf May 14, 1998 CHAIRMAN The Honorable Carolyn Malor ey Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology Committee on Government Reform and Oversight United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515-6143
Dear Congresswoman Maloney:
f in response to your request of May 20,1997, I am enclosing the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) May 1998 quarterly report on the Year 2000 as submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
We continue to make considerable progress in addressing our Year 2000 problem according to plan. One additional mission-critical system in the " replace" category has been implemented since the last reporting period. Parallel work is being completed on four of the five remaining mission-critical systems that still need repair or replacement, and they are on target to meet the OMB schedule. Progress on the one remaining system is dependent on receiving Year 2000-compliant software from a commercial source. Contingency plans are in place in the unlikely event that the scheduled implementation on October 31,1998, is not met because the vendor fails to supply the Year 2000-compliant products.
We have also made significant progress on our other than mission-critical systems. In our last report we informed you that we had further defined our non-mission-critical systems into two l
categories, business-essential and non-critical, for the purpose of making explicit decisions about establishing priorities (triage).
l Since our last report we have renovated an additional 13 business-essential systems. Our i
current status is as follows:
48%
business-essential systems renovated 36 %
undergoing renovation 16 %
scheduled for renovation More than half of our renovated systems have also been validated and implemented.
2 Progress has also been made in the non-critical category for those systems that are needed because of their relationship with business-essential systems. We have renovated an additional 7 systems since our last report and the current status is as follows:
29 %
non-critical systems renovated 12 %
undergoing renovation 59%
scheduled for renovation.
More than half of our renovated systems have also been validated and implemented.
With respect to our regulatory responsibilities, we recognize the importance of close and ongoing interactions with NRC's licensees in addressing the Year 2000 computer problem. On May 11,1998, we issued a letter concerning the Year 2000 problem to licensed utilities with operational nuclear power plants and plan to issue a similar letter to fuel cycle licensees and certificate holders by the end of May 1998. The letters will require these licensees to inform the NRC of steps they have taken or will take to ensure that they are effectively addressing the Year 2000 problem and their facilities will be Year 2000 ready.
The NRC continues to support the efforts of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion and is a member of the Energy Working Group. We are working closely with representatives from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy to give assistance with, and share information on, potential problems associated with the Year 2000.
The NRC's Deputy Executive Director for Regulatory Programs represents the agency on the President's Council.
Our Chief Information Officer (ClO) continues to coordinate weekly with NRC senior executives and staff at alllevels to ensure that they continue to maintain a high level of awareness of Year 2000 issues and that progress in meeting our renovation, validation, and implementation deadlines does not slip. Monthly Year 2000 status reports from agency offices and weekly status reports from the CIO's Year 2000 Program staff show that we are presently ahead of plan in addressing Year 2000 systems problems.
If you would like a more in-depth discussion of our continued progress with the Year 2000 Program, the agency's ClO and our Year 2000 Program Manager are available to meet with you and members of your staff at your convenience.
Sincerely, Shirley Ann Jackson
Enclosure:
Quarterly Report for May 1998 l
1
Status of the Nuclear Reaulatory Commission's Year 2000 Efforts Quarterly Report for May 1998 1.
Organizational Responsibilities. Describe how your Department / Agency is organized to track progress in addressing the Year 2000 problem.
a.
Organization. Describe responsible organizations for addressing the Year 2000 problem and provide an organization chart if organizations have changad from the previous report.
Arnold Levin continues as the agency's Year 2000 Program Manager. His title is
" Director, Applications Development Division." The Year 2000 Program Manager has day-to-day responsibility for NRC's Year 2000 Program and reports directly to the NRC Chief Information Officer (CIO). The CIO has overall responsibility
)'
and reports to the Chairman.
b.
Internal Accountability. Describe processes for assuring internal accountability of responsible organizations. Include any quantitative measures used to track performance and other methods to determine whether the responsible organizations are performing according to plan.
Intemal accountability for performance of Year 2000 activities is assured through continuous monitoring of progress against established milestones. To assure proper accountability for Year 2000 activities, we require that Senior Executive Service directors of agency offices provide monthly progress reports to the ClO on their efforts to repair or replace systems that contain the Year 2000 problem.
Additionally, Year 2000 Program staff meet with contractor management weekly, to review milestones for system repairs and replacements. Information received from reports described above are used to update a central Year 2000 system inventory database. Reports from the database are generated weekly to show the status of Year 2000 system repairs and replacements as measured against l
established milestone dates. The reports are analyzed and reviewed with the CIO every. seek. To date, data indicate that we are ahead of plan in addressing Year 2000 issues.
Overslaht. Describe the anagement actions taken and by whom, when a i
m c.
responsible organization falls behind schedule.
The Year 2000 Program Manager reviews progress reports on an ongoing basis and reports deviations from established schedules to the ClO. If any deviations are reported, the ClO will discuss them with managers who are responsible for Enclosure
l' 2
the systems. As part of this discussion, the CIO will determine remedial actions to be taken. The CIO will periodically brief the Chairman, Executive Director for Operations, and Chief Financial Officer of the NRC on any schedule deviations and status of remedial actions taken. None have occurred to date.
2.
Statn. Provide a report of the status of agency efforts to address the Year 2000 computer problems, a.
An aaency-wide status of the_tnial number of mission-critical systems.
l Total number of Number already Mumber being Number being Number being I
mission-critical compliant replaced repaired retired l
7 2
2 3
0 l
l b.
The status of mission-critical systems beina repaired.
l l
Assessment Renovation Validation implementation Milestones Sep 1997 SepiG98 Jan 1999 Mar 1999
% Completed 100 %
25%
25%
25%
b.1.
The status of mission-critical systems beina replaced.
Assessment Replacement Validation implementation l
Milestones Sep 1997 Sep 1998 Jan 1999 Mar 1999 j
% Completed 100 %
33%
33 %
33%
i c.
Qascription of Proareas. Provide a narrative description of progress, including the following elements:
i L
(1)
Status of Mission-Critical Systems.
l Parallel work efforts are addressing all systems still needing repair.
o and the Office of Management and Budget schedule will be met.
1 - Although OMB did not request this tab 6e, we prove et to clar:fy system replacement status
3 Of the three mission-critical systems being replaced, one was o
implemented in May 1998. The second is now 64 percent complete and is on schedule for implementation on 12/31/1998. Coding is underway (and will be completed by August 1998) for the third system. It will be implemented by October 1998.
No deadlines for mission-critical systems being repaired were o
scheduled for this reporting period. However, work continues on the following schedule for the three systems being repaired:
Renovate Validate implement OMB Milestone Dates Sep 1998 Jan 1999 Mar 1999 Emergency Response Data Sys 08/13/1998 01/31/1999 03/23/1999 Emergency Telecom Sys 08/31/1998 09/30/1998 10/31/1998 Ops Ctr Information Mgmt Gys 09/30/1998 12/31/1998 01/01/1999
('2)
Status of Non-Minion CIllipal Systems.
Our non-missico-critical systems are assigned to one of two categories in order to mne explicit decisions about establishing their priority for repair:
1.
Business-essential: any system that is integral to agency processes that are required for meeting agency statutory, programmatic, legal, or financial obligations. Typically, the agency could function without any major impact on its operations if any of these systems malfunctioned and was unavailable for up to 3 or 4 weeks while it is being repaired.
2.
Non-critical: any system that is not mission-critical or business-essential and whose unavailability would therefore only represent an inconvenience to the agency. Typically, these systems can be unavailable for extended periods (1 to 2 months or more) while they are being repaired and manual processes can be readily used in their place if necessary.
Renovation status for these systems is as follows:
63 Business Essentia! Systems 30 systems have been repaired.
18 systems have been validated.
16 systems have been implemented.
23 additional systems are currently being repaired.
10 systems scheduled for repair, work not yet started.
)
I 4
i 49 Non-Critical Systems 14 systems have been repaired.
7 systems have been validated.
7 systems have been implemented.
6 additional systems are currently being repaired.
29 systems scheduled for repair, work not yet started.
The following progress has been made since the February report:
Business-Essential Business-essential system count was reduced by four, reflecting a decision to retire systems previously scheduled for repair Thirteen systems were repaired
+
Five systems were validated Six systems were implemented Renovation has begun on five additional systems.
j Non-Critical Non-critical system count was reduced by four, reflecting a decision to retire systems previously scheduled for repair
]
Seven systems were repaired j
+
1 Three systems were validated i
Four systems were implemented Renovation has begun on an additional four systems.
+
(3)
Data Exchanges.
We have surveyed all areas of the agency that have the potential to exchange data with other Federal, State and local governments, as well as with international and commercial entities. Three systems were identified that exchange data with NRC.
[
In the last report we stated that we were in contact with all of our data exchange partners to ensure that data compatibility is achieved. We j
l subsequently found that one group of data exchange partners, for a system that has multiple data exchanges, had not been contacted. This oversight has since been rectified. It was determined that the missed data exchange was already Yect 2000 compliant.
5 Finally, we responded to a request to provide information, through the General Services Administration, to the National Association of State Information Resource Executives (NASIRE), identifying our data L
exchanges with States. NRC provides data to States on State tax.
i.
withholdings for employees. This data exchange is already Year 2000 compliant..
l (4)
Contingency Planning.
Contingency plans are in place for all seven mission-critical systems in l
' the event that unforeseen problems are encountered.
L NRC's non-mist 'r.1-critical systems are organized into two categories:
business-essential and non-critical. If a business-essential system falls behind schedule by 2 months or more, a contingency plan will be L
prepared. By our definition, non-critical systems are not mission-critical -
or business-essential and their unavailability would represent only a -
g temporary inconvenience to the agency (they are low-end administrative systems). Typically, these systems can be unavailable for extended periods (1 to 2 mo.iths or more) while they are being repaired, and manual processes can readily be used in their place, if necessary.
Therefore, our contingency plans for these systems will be to rely on.
manual processes if they are not repaired in time.
(5)
Other Year 2000 Implicadons.
NRC sent 111 letters to its various telecommunications vendors nation-wide in order to determine their progress in addressing the Year 2000 problem as it relates to their products._ Most of the vendors (77%) have responded with information on about 79 percent of our telecommunications inventory.
L -
The responses indicate that 73 percent of our inventory is Year 2000 compliant or is not affected by Year 2000 issues. A small amount (4%)
has been identified as non-compliant and will be replaced. We continue to actively research the remaining 23 percent to determine status.
NRC published in the Federal Reaister and on the NRC Internet Web Page that its staff is proposing to send a letter to all licensed utilities with operational nuclear power plants requiring them to inform the NRC of steps they have taken or will take to ensure that their computers have no problems adjusting to the Year 2000. The letter will be sent before the end of May 1998.
I j
Similar to its approach for commercial power reactors, NRC is developing L
a letter regarding the effect of the Year 2000 computer problem on fuel L
cycle licensees and certificate holders. The letter will require addressees
6 to provide (1) written confirmation of implementation of their Year 2000 Readiness Programs, (2) written confirmation that the facilities are Year 2000 ready and in compliance with the terms and conditions of their license / certificate and NRC regulations, and (3) updates in late-1998 and mid-1999 on implementation of their Year 2000 Readiness Programs.
Further, NRC will send a third information notice regarding the Year 2000 computer problem to materials licensees reminding them of the Year 2000 problem. Both the letter and the information notice will be placed on the NRC external Web site. We estimate that this letter will be issued at the end of May 1998.
On April 29,1998, the Deputy Executive Director for Regulatory Programs attended a meeting of the Energy Working Group of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. The purpose of the meeting was to develop an approach to ensure. that the energy sector and primarily the electric power industry was effectively addressing the Year 2000 computer problem. The focus of the Council's concern in the energy sector was on ensuring the availability of the electric grid. The NRC continues to actively participate and support initiatives to address Year 2000 concerns.
NRC also has a program underway to replace all microcomputers that have non-compliant chips by December 1998.
(6)
Problems Affectina Proaress.
In some instances, the pace of our work depends on the schedule that commercial vendors have established for releasing either updates to existing products to bring them into Year 2000 compliance or entirely new releases that are Year 2000 compliant. We are in constant communication with these vendors in order to work with them to ensure that the products we need are available on time. The failure of these vendors to provide Year 2000 compliant products on time may adversely j
affect the schedule for some of our systems.
(7)
Government-wide Systems.
NRC has no systems in this category.
(8)
Verification Efforts.
Repaired systems are being independently verified and validated by a three-level approach. The first, unit testing, is performed by contract personnel who actually repair the system code. The second and third levels are performed by personnel who are not involved with system repairs. The second level of testing is performed by contractor personnel assigned to a permanent quality assurance group, using an established
7 test plan. Third-level testing is performed by the system's NRC user.
Only when written approval is received from all three testing levels do we consider the system validated and report it as validated.
(9)
Other Evidence of ProaresA None offered.
3.
Costs.
Our costs are unchanged from our previous report.
Fiscal 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Total Year Cost 0.0*
2.4 4.0 3.9
.6 10.9
- Item is $45,000.
4.
Exception Report on Systems, No exceptions to report.
l S.
Systems Scheduled for implementation after March 1999. Include a list of those mission-critical systems where repair or replacement cannot be implemented by the March 1999 deadline.
All mission-critical systems can be implemented by the March 1999 deadline.
If you have any questions, please contact Arnold E. (Moe) Levin at 301-415-7458 or via electronic mail at AEL1@NRC. gov.
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