MITRE - Y2K - Cost Estimate Details

The following Y2K material has been kept available by MITRE for historical purposes only and has not been updated unless noted.

Cost Estimate Details

Notes
These numbers indicate the size of the potential Year 2000 problem code. Some of the code may already handle the Year 2000 problem.

The code analysis does not filter out false positives for date issues; therefore, cost estimates reflect a potential upper bound.

For the cost estimates, a productivity rate of 201 ExLOC/staff month was assumed. At present, software maintenance productivity rates are not well known and vary across projects. This figure was developed from MITRE's on-going software maintenance studies.

Algorithm to Develop Example Cost Estimates
The following algorithm was used to develop the example cost estimates:

DM...Percent Design Modified
CM...Percent Code Modified
IM...Percent of Integration Required for Modified Software

Cost Estimation Heuristics

The major elements of cost to fix the DOD Y2K problem are shown in the equations below.
Estimating total cost to DOD requires knowing the size of DOD's software inventory; but an inventory of executable lines of code (ExLOC) in each DOD system does not exist.
Some DOD systems may not have a significant problem. Y2K costs for those systems could be negligible.
To date, only a small portion of the total cost has been examined, as indicated by the box below. Total costs for Y2K will need to also account for hardware costs, system engineering, program management, system testing, for each system across the total inventory of systems as well as deal with those systems that are not actively under maintenance.

For further information directly related to Year 2000 issues, please contact Year2000@mitre.org