Hewlett-Packard Company

Hewlett-Packard Company

Year 2000 Program Overview

Hewlett-Packard has developed a comprehensive program to address the challenges presented by the Year 2000 challenge. HP is working hard on a number of fronts to achieve Year 2000 readiness for the company’s

products and services

internal business systems

suppliers

facilities and site services.

To support this goal, HP’s senior management team created a Year 2000 Program Office. The Y2K Program Office provides direction across the company and ensures that all of HP’s business organizations work towards enabling customers to achieve their Year 2000 readiness. This Program Office is also responsible for HP’s Year 2000 Business Continuity Planning initiative.

Products and Services

HP is committed to helping its customers reach their own Y2K readiness goals. To meet this commitment, HP developed its own rigorous standard for compliance testing for products across the entire company. Testing was completed in mid-1998 and today the compliance status for more than 100,000 products is available to customers on HP’s Year 2000 web site at http://www.hp.com/year2000.

Companies define Y2K "compliance" in many different ways. At HP, the definition of standard product compliance is consistent across the company. Here is a summary of that definition (the full text is available at http://www.hp.com/year2000/compliance.html):

A compliant product accurately processes date data (including, but not limited to: calculating, comparing and sequencing dates), from, into and between the 20^th and 21^st centuries, the years 1999 and 2000, and leap-year calculations, when used in accordance with its product documentation, including any instructions on installing patches or upgrades, and provided all other products used in combination with the product properly exchange data with it.

HP demonstrates its commitment to helping customers achieve their own Y2K readiness in the following ways:

HP products shipping today are Year 2000 compliant.

HP product compliance information is available at this web site in the Product Compliance Search section or in the Products section.

Customers are strongly encouraged to take responsibility for addressing needed changes as soon as possible. HP has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of our product testing. However, because each customer’s environment is different from HP’s laboratory test environment, it is the customer’s responsibility to validate the Year 2000 readiness of HP products in their own environment. Therefore, information about the Year 2000 status of HP products is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind and is subject to change without notice. The information provided on this site constitutes a Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure for purposes of the U.S. Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act.

HP is committed to providing at minimum a Year 2000 update for standard, non-compliant products delivered on or after January 1, 1995. The updates will be available at no additional charge if the product is covered under a current applicable HP support contract or warranty, or if it was delivered on or after January 1, 1997. Associated hardware, software, non-HP products and services needed to enable this update will be available for sale.

HP’s Cure2000 Partner’s Tools and Services, HP Consulting, the Worldwide Support Organization and HP’s Year 2000 Methodology Course are available to customers to enable their Year 2000 readiness.

The HP Welcome Back ’99 program waives some of the costs of returning to HP support, and makes it easier for customers to keep their products supported through the Year 2000.

HP is currently working to ensure that all call centers and response centers worldwide are staffed and trained to handle Year 2000 questions. Each customer interfacing organization is training and deploying Year 2000 specialists to assist their organizations in answering in-depth Year 2000 questions. HP’s field force has been trained to ensure they are equipped with the latest information on product compliance, services, and tools to assist customers with their Year 2000 readiness.

Internal Business Systems

HP has been aggressively tackling its own Year 2000 readiness and is confident its own internal business systems will be ready for the Year 2000 transition. In 1996 the company created a dedicated Y2K Internal Readiness Program Office to provide a program and project management function for the Year 2000 readiness of internal application and infrastructure readiness activities.

The Y2K Internal Readiness Program Office is sponsored by executives and provides monthly progress reports to the company’s senior management. This office is charged with raising awareness throughout the company, developing tools and methodologies for addressing the Y2K issue, monitoring the development and implementation of business and infrastructure plans to bring non-compliant applications into compliance on a timely basis, and identifying and assisting in resolving high risk issues.

HP is approaching its Y2K internal readiness program with a four-phase methodology : (1) assessment, (2) planning, (3) preparation and (4) implementation.

The assessment phase involves taking an inventory of the company’s internal IT applications to prioritize risk, identifying failure dates, defining a solution strategy, estimating repair costs and communicating across and within business units regarding the magnitude of the problem and the need to address Y2K issues.
The planning phase consists of identifying the tasks necessary to ensure readiness, scheduling remediation plans for applications and infrastructure, and determining resource requirements and allocations.
The third phase, preparation, involves readying the development and testing environments, and piloting the remediation process.
Implementation, the last phase, consists of executing the company’s plans to fix, test and implement critical applications and associated infrastructure, and putting in place contingency plans for processes that have a high impact on the company’s businesses.

HP’s Year 2000 internal business systems are currently Year 2000 ready or are now in the process of completing their remediation, replacement or migration efforts. HP expects all remaining Year 2000 remediation and testing to be completed prior to July 31, 1999. Here is a partial list of company-critical applications that are being made ready for the Year 2000:

Order Fulfillment
Inventory Management
Manufacturing Planning
Distribution and Logistics
Procurement
Accounting
Payroll
Budgeting
Telecommunications Systems
Networking Systems

In addition, contingency plans are being developed for both applications and infrastructure as part of company’s overall Y2K Business Continuity Planning effort.

Suppliers

A large number of companies around the world are vital members of HP’s supply chains and they must be prepared to meet the Year 2000 challenge. HP’s Procurement organization has implemented an extensive program for Year 2000 Supplier Readiness.

Two key objectives drive the supplier readiness program:

Ensure that suppliers have their own documented Y2K readiness programs that demonstrate their Y2K assessments, timelines, implementation plans, and progress reports with metrics and contingency planning. Supplier programs are also expected to include flow-down requirements for their suppliers.
Determine that components and sub-assemblies being supplied to HP and its business partners are Y2K compliant.

The process that HP uses to assess supplier models Y2K industry-best practices.

HP sent an initial survey to its critical suppliers. Companies were asked to provide information about their compliance status, compliance plans, metrics and process for reaching Year 2000 readiness. This phase was completed in April 1998.
HP completed an initial risk assessment in June 1998 in partnership with suppliers to assess overall business impact. This step included contingency planning factors.
HP’s Year 2000 supplier program managers across the company coordinated with each critical supplier and completed a follow-up review and escalation plan. Supplier programs were analyzed and high-risk suppliers are eliminated from consideration for new business. (This phase is ongoing.)

Contingency plans are being developed by HP’s Procurement organization as one part of the overall Y2K Business Continuity Planning initiative.

HP’s Corporate EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Services Group coordinated testing for EDI suppliers and partners. HP’s Corporate EDI Services Group have overall responsibility for maintaining the company’s EDI gateway infrastructure and software. HP has completed testing of EDI capabilities with suppliers, partners and customers to ensure that data sent or received via EDI will be correctly interpreted.

The Supplier Readiness Program has completed a majority of the supply chain Year 2000 assessments. In some cases, to meet Y2K readiness the company has replaced suppliers or eliminated suppliers from consideration for new business. The company has also contracted with multiple transportation companies to provide product delivery alternatives. New suppliers are assessed for Year 2000 compliance before being approved as a HP vendor.

Business Services Operations

HP owns most of its manufacturing sites and sales and service sites worldwide. The Year 2000 initiative for the company’s facilities is being managed by HP’s Real Estate Facilities Operations. Each site has an assigned Y2K program manager responsible for ensuring Year 2000 readiness.

Operations implemented a process to assess Year 2000 site and internal non-IT systems readiness deployed across the company. Within each of four major areas of focus, teams are verifying the readiness of scores of items, including, but not limited to:

Building operations and equipment:

Electrical, lighting and monitoring systems
Emergency back-up systems
Heating, ventilation and air conditioning; fire and alarms, toxic gas systems
Phone systems and voice mail
Elevators
Security (card access, video cameras/monitors, badge systems, photo identification, property pass, incident reporting, etc.)
Wastewater monitoring, control and treatment
Air sampling
Clock systems
Public address systems
Irrigation systems
Handheld measuring devices
Electronic maintenance and calibration

Purchased systems developed internally (including coding to other systems):

Server and data warehouse databases
Computer-aided and integrated-facility management applications (such items as maintenance management and work-order tracking and allocation of costs, inventory, asset, lease and cable)
Document management
Programmable logic controllers
Contract development and management
EHS/OHN tracking systems

Services provided to internal customers:

Mail
Copiers
Office supplies
Customer work request and response centers
Fleet management
Travel

Services and products provided to site operations:

Utilities (power, gas, water, sewer, garbage/recycling)
Maintenance
Services (food, cleaning, security)

HP is pursuing Year 2000 readiness and supports the needs of our customers during their transitions. In addition, contingency plans are being developed for site operations and internal non-IT systems as part of Y2K Business Continuity Planning initiative.

HP’s Year 2000 Web Site

HP’s Y2K web site, http://www.hp.com/year2000, is a comprehensive Year 2000 site and the primary vehicle for communicating with customers, partners and other external audiences for Year 2000 related issues. From this site, links are provided to:

country sites worldwide
product specific pages
relevant Year 2000 pages

The information provided above constitutes a "Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure" for purposes of the U.S. Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act.