THE JOURNAL OF ANDROMEDA
The journal of Andromeda is upgraded more or less mounthly. It depends on the number of interesting events, and on the time we have to comment. The scopes of these info notes are the following ones:
a) shortly provide useful contents, about methodologies, about supporting tools, about techniques of safe and reliable design;
b) give news about agreements, contracts, received orders, related to Andromeda, interesting news for the stakeholders of our business process;
c) give info about past and future events, where we are involved.
The global crisis has undoubtedly many negative aspects. But if we don't lose the way, the crisis also represents a great opportunity for change! And we are dealing many key changes, since one year. Andromeda srl, after ten years of honorable service, having given employment to a total of thirty people more or less, had to be go into liquidation in 2009, due to an unsustainable financial situation. Two new realities were born: Andromeda individual enterprise, and Andromeda Systems Engineering, an international corporate, including your truly, two members from US one from UK. The focus is even more markedly, system engineering, and exploits not only European experience: one of the partners is a former U.S. NASA project manager, one is an expert in open source technologies, while the English one is an expert in venture capital and financing of start-ups. A very well composed team, ready for the challenge of the international markets! March 21st 2010 |
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Important commercial agreements signed in Poland and Brasil |
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Andromeda s.r.l. has recently signed two important agreements, for the commercial representation in Poland and in Brasil. Mr. Ricardo C. Pereira, who will promote Andromeda in Brasil, owns a huge experience in General Management of Multinational Enterprises, an excellent knowledge of the South America and Brazilian Market related to Industrial Automation and Instrumentation, Special Applications Software Tools, besides a great expertise in Sales and Marketing Departments and also by his vast network connections in Brazil. Anna Slodczyk, ASA Poland, is a expert of Risk Management and Assessment, well known in whole Poland. Recently, A. Autino, CEO of Andromeda s.r.l., and Anna participated to a Conference in Katowice, the ISO Silesia conference, where they presented together PTESY and the project lifecycle management methodologies, also applied to Risk Management. The world wide commercial network of Andromeda is under construction. We are to sign agreements UK, while in the U.S. we have a point of reference of great experience and reputation. About all of these we will provide information in the next newsletters. December 2nd 2008 |
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| Newsletter
November 2008
by A. Autino |
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The Global Economy entered the biggest crisis since 1929, showing clearly the limits of the XX Century’s philosophy and methodologies. Crisis always operate a hard selection: only the most mature professional communities, able to draw new philosophies and new methodologies, will survive. Stock exchanges burn billions of ... bits in the banks accounts. Real richness is not money, but technologies and potential of work: with 7 billion intelligences, humanity was never so rich! We have a lot of works to do: |
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We will have to manage more and more complex projects. Complex projects cannot be managed without tools based on relational database technologies. Our main product, PTESY (Project & Test Engineering System), is recognized as unique in the world, due to the following: |
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November 14th 2008 |
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| Our methodology of Project
and Test Engineering
by A. Autino PREAMBLE OF THE AUTHOR (November 14th 2008): the following newsletter was written eight years ago, and faitfully presents the rationals and the deductions which lead to conceive PTESY, as tool targeted to simplify and make more manageable the activities of tracing and solution of the problems detected during the commissioning of complex systems. It was the beginning! |
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Every
time I introduce ANDROMEDA s.r.l. to a potential Customer I get, usually, two
reactions: appreciation for our scientific rigour and for our design / test
tools and methodologies; immediately after, the consideration that such
methodologies and tools are applicable only to projects of great complexity and
difficulty of integration. Thus I argue that our methodologies allow to save
time anyway, vs. a "traditional" project management, but the Customer
remains sceptical. Why? Does it exist a diffused wariness about methodologies?
It could be that, so far, many methodologies claimed resources, instead of
giving. Our first engagement is the one to set-up methodologies to give help, and not to be a burden, for the project. But let’s go about things in an orderly way. |
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The Quality in the Electronic Age First: what are we proposing? Simple: we propose a methodology of Project
Management according to quality criteria, but no more based on
paper. The quality based on paper
often showed itself incompatible with the scheduling of the projects, that
accumulate so months and months of delay, with high suffering of the invoices
and payments. Designers and quality managers
are more and more distant, and the quality methodologies, although often
mentioned, are very little used. Our methodology is based on electronic support and on commercial
platforms, usable on whatever PC or NoteBook. Our systems were born and evolved
on the job, pressed by the contractual
milestones; they were conceived, like a magic wand, with the scope
to conciliate apparently incompatible needs. They represent in any case,
therefore (both for big or small projects, simple or complex), a conspicuous
qualitative step, in all the project phases. The starting point of such strategy stands in the acknowledgment of the epochal change, happened in the second half of the past century: the Industrial Age gave birth to the Electronic Age. We ought, nowadays, to use the tools that Electronics offers to us, even not to be submerged by the new classes of problems, originated by the Electronics. So we will not be constrained to trudge after the problems, unable to master them. |
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The problems trace and traceability Up to
the phases of Shop Test in laboratory a good Project Leader succeeds to manage
with traditional methods the errors found on the system, even if with large
waste of time and energies. The crisis announces itself since the beginning of
the commissioning phase. We make the first plant integrated tests and we find
tents,
hundreds of problems: does the designer take note of them? Sitting at thousands
km far away, this seems obvious. The more we go near the installation site, the
more we learn what is the reality: the designer is working in hard conditions,
he has the system at his disposal for two hours in the day (in the rest of the
time the instrument engineer is missing, the power is off, he cannot enter the
yard because he does not own the right assurance, and so on). Moreover he is
pressed by the Customer, who liked to have the system already perfectly working. Therefore he takes note of a problem every ten, on own papers and
notebooks, without method (i.e. without a standard format of description of
the problem). The problems will spring again in great part to the next test
level, with big Customer’s intolerance, or, worse, they will hide until the day
they will cause serious damages. We developed a tool to record the problems (LogBook) to be used
online, during the tests execution: it can run on the same WorkStation used
for testing, or on a NoteBook to hold nearby. It is superfluous to describe the
enormous advantage of a systematic annotation, made following a predisposed
tracing, while we have well in mind all the terms of the problem. Moreover the
LogBook allows the Test Engineer to easy retrieve similar already traced
problems, and quickly see already analyzed solutions. |
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The meeting of valuation of the test campaigns During the on site testing phases,
periodic meetings are held, in order to estimate the performed tests and to
decide the actions, in order to eliminate the malfunctions of the system and to
finalize the test activities. The chairman of the meeting takes note, on the
minute of meeting, about the problems and solutions. If the problems are many,
such meetings result extremely laborious and frustrating, especially for the
ones who would like to manage the project with systematic approach, and without
leaving anything on the road. The minute of meeting ends to be an exercise of
beautiful writing, heavy many pages... that nobody will read anymore. The traditional management of a
complex commissioning, usually oscillates between two opposite and apparently
incompatible needs: on one side they complain the insufficient application of
quality methodologies, on the other side they despair for the delay of the
jobs. Our methodology allows to manage the meetings (and - what it counts more - the problems) in a very much more efficient and rational way: the problems are already described, therefore it is enough to pull out them with proper selection keys, to print them and to annex them to the minute of meeting. The minute is reduced to few pages: the valuation of the test campaign and the decisions about the continuation of the activities. |
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Correction or change? Another moloch which claims an
enormous tribute of time by the Project Manager, is the contractual handling of
the problem: is it a non conformity vs. the functional requirements or is it a
new Customer requirement? Often the answer is not obvious neither immediate,
and demands a laborious trace of the problem vs. the customer requirements
(btw, the problems-requirements tracing is anyway wanted by the quality methodologies).
Also at this regard our methodology allows to save
enormous amounts of time, beyond providing a simpler and less expensive solution
also in terms of... heart eating, by the opposite parties! Our complete Project and Test Engineering System provides that all the meaningful items of the Software Life Cycle are managed by means of relational tools. By such tools it is however always possible to get traditional electronic and paper documents. But the relevant thing is the possibility to have online, anytime, the information at own disposal by searches of few second each-one, and not of hours. What do we mean with " meaningful items of the Software Life Cycle "? At least the following macro-elements:
Each-one of the listed
information categories have the proper electronic notebook: A ReqBook for the
requirements, a TestBook for Test Procedures, and a LogBook for
Problems. The various electronic
notebooks are connected, so that, faced to a problem (or a class of problems),
it is possible to trace immediately: · The test (or tests) that
detected it · The requirements covered
from the above test · The document in which are
requirement of which over The circle is closed, therefore: if the single requirement is enough to clarify the doubt, the case is solved. If other related requirements are needed, the search is anyway easy and immediate. If we need to consult the documents, we will get at once the documents codes and their location. |
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An up stream campaign We are aware that ours is an up stream
cultural struggle. All the current informatics culture pushes in another direction, because it is
oriented to satisfy, mostly, not deterministic requirements (the ones of the
communication). But for the real time systems (also in the telecommunication
environment) the goal is exactly the opposite one. The safe, systematic,
constant and coherent control during the time of an equipment or a plant
requires that the system was limited and closed; while in other cases it must
instead be opened, to increase to the compatibilities and the possibilities of
exchanges. The boundless development environments, where there are apparently
infinite objects, methods, properties, classes and so on, bring the systemist's
activity more and more to look like the one of the doctor or the scientist vs.
living beeings: far away from any deterministic principle, but rather near the
old “test and error” principles of the scientific research. But all the above doesn’t clash our paradigm at all: the more elevated is the complexity (nearly "biological") of the systems, the greater must be our scientific rigour in annotating the problems that we meet and the solutions that we adopt along the way! That’s why we think that our method is deserving to continue and to make school. We are therefore seeking Customers and Partners that appreciates our method, and want to experience it to take advantages of our aid, so giving us a change to grow our company and to earn market to our project culture. Adriano Autino |
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See also, on I progetti di TDF: Affidabilità
& Sicurezza dei Sistemi e del Software (italian language)
Adriano Autino - president ANDROMEDA
s.r.l. Real
Time Systems, Tools and Methodologies for Aerospace Industry and Research web
address: http://www.andromeda-srl.com/ e-mail: adriano.autino@andromeda-srl.com Adriano
Autino - president Technologies of the Frontier web
address: http://www.tdf.it/ e-mail: adriano.autino@tdf.it |
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