Andy's CV
Following acquisition of SystemSkill by PA in 1986, Andy remained as SystemSkill's Software Manager and took on responsibility for in-house QA activities. He has developed and audited Oracle-based systems for shipping, gas and financial organisations. He has considerable experience of specification and implementation of real-time command and control systems and real-time data distribution systems. He has a Certificate of Proficiency in SSADM, and an auditor's certificate for ISO 9000-3.
1999 Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force Electronic Tote system provides flight movement information to Air Traffic Controllers at RAF air bases. The recent software upgrade supports the grouping of individual aircraft into formations on the displays, thus reducing the operator workload in busy periods. Andy was responsible, in close consultation with the controllers, for the specification of the Human Computer Interface and for extensive modifications to the Novell networking software. He managed the implementation of the HCI software changes, implemented the first upgrades on-site and prepared the mechanism for the remaining upgrades to be performed by engineers at the air bases.
1999 Department of Environment, Regions and Transport
The Network Computing Division of modified its requirements for the integration of various manufacturers' subsystems, which form part of the Control Office systems for the National Motorway Control System. Andy supported the division in the definition of the TCP/IP protocols required to support the new backbone LANs, which will form part of the new National Driver Information System.
1998 Flag Officer Sea Training (Royal Navy)
Responsibility for managing Range Danger Areas off the South Coast moved from Portland to Plymouth. This involved the introduction of data transfer between RADAR sites along the coast and Naval Air Traffic Controllers. Andy was responsible for the design of new displays for the range information, and for the implementation of protocols to allow operators to update the information from multiple operations rooms. The project was completed to extremely tight time-scales imposed by the necessity to meet Civil Aviation Authority requirements.
1998 Internal
Andy was responsible for re-drafting many of the Quality Assurance standards for software development and systems integration, in preparation for external audit to ISO 9001 and 9000-3. As a result of the audit, PA's ISO 9000 series certification was maintained.
1997 Ministry of Defence
The Ministry of Defence models complex elements of real-time dynamic systems and uses results from those models in more complex scenarios. Andy implemented a mechanism which allows the model dynamics to be specified using a modern integrated design environment rather than by hand. This also allows model elements to be held in a library and re-used, greatly reducing the development effort required for new models.
1994-1997 Royal Air Force
The RAF procured a number of systems for its air stations. Each system uses a local area network to distribute air traffic control information, including aircraft and weather data, to a number of terminals at each station. The systems also exchange data over a wide area network between more than thirty sites world-wide. To ensure the integrity and maintainability of the design, the project used SSADM version 4, coupled with an extensive rapid prototyping phase. This enabled users' comments to be incorporated into the final HCI design. Andy managed the team responsible for the design and development of the software. He had overall software design responsibility, including liaison with RAF staff at all levels. He was also responsible for co-ordination with various hardware sub-contractors.
1994 Internal
Andy was responsible for the preparation of parts PA's Quality Assurance and Quality Control standards for external audit, as part of the change from second- to third-party accreditation to ISO 9001:1994, and ISO 9000-3:1991.
1993 Cronos Containers
Cronos is a container leasing organisation dealing with shipping and freight haulage operations throughout the world. The company is replacing its entire IT capability including the tracking of container movements, the administration of lease agreements and support for the financial aspects of the business. With long term maintenance in mind, the system is being developed in Oracle using CASE*Designer, CASE*Dictionary and CASE*Generator. Andy developed the data model and built the Oracle database to support the new system and collaborated with the users in developing prototype screens for the less well defined areas of the systems. Andy then refined the design and produced the full size databases for development and live use. Andy is now leading a team which is producing data maintenance screens and reports, once again collaborating with the system users as the final system is being developed during a period of only four months.
1992 Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is extending the life of the Electronic Data Distribution System for the Royal Naval Air Stations until at least the end of the century. Andy analysed and evaluated options for replacing the central processors. He was responsible for the production of the detailed Requirements Definition for the chosen solution, an Ethernet-based network of PC terminals and fileservers, and leading the team carrying out the work.
1992 Department of Transport
The DOT is procuring a batch of motorway control systems involving bespoke hardware and software from a number of different suppliers. Andy provided responses to technical queries regarding the equipment specifications, and was responsible for specifying acceptance tests which will ensure the correct interworking of telephone equipment from several suppliers.
1991 British Gas
Andy was responsible for specifying and carrying out the transfer of British Gas's Oracle-based maintenance scheduling system to their new operating environment. The system was moved from a peer-to-peer network of single-user PCs to a new network with VAX timeservers. As well as re-building the software for a multi-user environment, the work included transferring, re-structuring and re-validating a large amount of user data.
1990-1991 Department of Transport
Andy conducted a QA review of a software implementation being provided by a third party. He advised on likely areas of risk and made recommendations for improvements in working practices. Andy was part of a team providing project support to the Department for the implementation of the National Motorway Communications System (NMCS2). He collaborated on the review and restructuring of the NMCS2 specifications and the specification of a new central system architecture from the system, and was responsible for the specification of an OSI Local Area Network for the central system.
1990 British Gas
PA developed a maintenance system for the above-sea structures of production platforms in the Morecambe Bay and Rough fields. The software was written using Oracle and SQL and was implemented on networked PCs. Andy led the development team and was responsible for designing the Oracle database, prototyping the system to show to the user steering committee, specifying the detailed transactions and processes, training a client programmer, and scheduling the programming work of PA and client programmers. He also carried out the system testing, and configured and installed the system.
1990 Shell International Petroleum
Andy was a key member of a PA team reviewing an Oracle-based Operational Management System implemented for Shell by a third party. Andy assessed the system design, the structure, efficiency and maintainability of the code, and audited the contractor's adherence to agreed quality procedures.
1989 London International Financial Futures Exchange
For this financial trading institution, Andy created, implemented and tested a significant component of a software suite. The software was crucial to the improvement in performance of the client in his market place. The suite was written in Pascal and runs on a VAX cluster environment under VAX/VMS.
1986-1989 Royal Navy
He was the design authority in the re-design of Electronic Data Distribution System (EDDS) in service at a number of Royal Naval air stations to accommodate additional features for two more customers. Andy gained a close insight into the needs and constraints of multi-tasking/user operating system environments.
1985-1988 Brunel University
In collaboration with Brunel University, Andy worked on the software simulation of a parallel processing chip architecture (SCAPE). The requirements for effective parallel processing applied to sensor signals and post-processing of images were addressed during the further development of the SCAPE simulation tool and its corresponding algorithmic library. The software was written in Pascal and an intermediate (parallel processing) language.
1987 Quality Audit
Andy conducted a quality audit of a third party contractor's software development procedures on behalf of MoD; he drew upon his previous experience of code validation to further this assignment.
1987 Internal
Andy was responsible for ensuring that the company was successfully re-assessed for its QA system under AQAP-1 and AQAP-13 and given a further 3 year term of approval.
1982-1986 SystemSkill Ltd
Andy joined the company as a software engineer and was later promoted to Software Manager. He was closely involved in the design and implementation of a microcomputer-based avionics test rig and fast RS232 communications. He also led a team validating and documenting software for the Sea Harrier cockpit avionics simulation rig. He led the team implementing a multi-terminal distributed information (EDDS) system for Royal Navy Air Traffic Control (ATC) operations. It is a fault-tolerant, dual-computer configuration operating in real-time. The program was written in Pascal and runs under CDOS. Andy was involved with the implementation of a ship performance monitoring system for Shell Tankers.
1978-1982 Software Sciences Ltd
Andy joined the company as a programmer and then became a team leader supervising the validation of a distributed real-time database manager using Coral 66 and Assembler in a Ferranti Argus 700 based network for the Admiralty Research Establishment. Other projects included the design of a failure-tolerant command and control system architecture to run on the ASH network system and the implementation of a point-of-sale signature verification system using electronic card readers and digital tablets.