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Software
Engineering and Support
Like Systems Engineering, successful
Software Engineering requires an integrated,
multi-disciplined team. It’s not just about
programmers and fluency in computer
languages. Our experience has shown that
trained systems analysts and engineers,
customer liaison personnel, documentation
specialists, software quality assurance
personnel, and testers are all key members
of the successful software development team.
Horton Technical Associates has developed,
implemented, and successfully applied a
robust software development and engineering
methodology based on the Software
Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity
Model (CMM). While we have not yet been
assessed by an external auditor, our
documented procedures currently reflect a
CMM Level 3 capability.
Our disciplined approach to the task of
developing software allowed us to design,
develop, deploy, and support a complex
item-level performance model and analysis
tool for the U.S. Army and its Future Combat
Systems (FCS) program in near record time.
Although customer requirements defined at
the start of the software development effort
continued to evolve throughout the design,
coding, and documentation phases of this
project, Horton Technical Associates, and
its agile team of full- and part-time
programmers succeeded in delivering a
300,000 line-of-code software application to
the Army after only 9 months of development.
During our spiral software development
effort, HTA’s development team met all 342
user requirements and achieved an average
defect rate of less than 0.1% for the entire
application. We also delivered a complete
User’s Guide and Training Support Package
when we delivered the software.
HTA’s application, designated SURVIVE, was a
finalist in two categories for the New
Mexico IT Software Association (NMITSA) 2005
awards program, and was accredited to
support test and evaluation of manned FCS
ground vehicles in one-on-one engagement and
test scenarios.
Click
here to
read
more about our experience
with SURVIVE.
Our successes with SURVIVE translate
directly into key services and capabilities
that are available to government and
industry customers. The processes and
procedures developed and proven during our
experience with this complex software
application allow us to offer the following
robust capabilities.
1. Consultant
services for object-oriented software
design, development, testing, and
documentation.
Horton Technical Associates, as a consultant
to your agency or business, can provide
coaching, training, and mentoring to your
staff. We can leverage our experiences and
lessons learned to help you anticipate
problems during your own development effort
and minimize their impact to your delivery
schedules.
2. Enhance
your current IT organization capability and
responsiveness.
We offer dedicated on- or
off-site support to help your IT staff; HTA
can augment your IT staff’s capacity and
increase their ability to meet your needs.
3. Graphic
User Interfaces (GUIs), Help Files, and
Bilingual (English/Spanish) documentation.
HTA can
show your staff how we optimized our GUI
performance, validated control interfaces,
and proactively managed memory usage during
run-time. We can also extend your
application’s audience by integrating
multi-language support options, interfaces,
and documentation.
4. Custom
programming services.
We can design, develop, test, verify,
validate, and deploy custom interactive,
secure, and robust software applications
that meet your specific needs; we offer
stand-alone, desktop, web-based
applications, client-server applications,
and distributed applications.
5. Legacy
software updates and enhancements.
According to the
Financial Times Digital Business (11/22/06
edition, page 6), computer programs written
in “old code” (such as Cobol) can pose
significant problems for many of today’s
businesses. At Horton Technical Associates,
we are experienced in porting legacy
software applications, written in older
programming languages, to newer,
object-oriented applications that are more
robust, maintainable, efficient, and
user-friendly; HTA can make your software
easier to use and help it expand to meet
your growing needs. Our team is fluent in
more than 38 different programming
languages.
6. Independent
software Verification and Validation (V&V)
and Accreditation.
In many situations, V&V is considered a
necessary evil. In many programs,
development teams and users consider V&V as
a task that occurs only at delivery of the
software product. Our experience has shown
that successful V&V is the result of proper
design, planning, and management throughout
the software development cycle. As your
consultant or subcontractor, Horton
Technical Associates offers dedicated
software development oversight designed to
facilitate the V&V process and prepare your
team, and your application for your
customers’ certification and accreditation
procedures. Our team can provide independent
determination that your software correctly
represents required functions and processes
and accurately performs required tasks; if
you require outside accreditation, we can
facilitate the accreditation process and
enhance the experience for your IT staff and
the accreditation agency.
7. Documentation
support. A
successful software application requires
more than just source code and GUIs. It also
requires a complete and comprehensive set of
documentation that will facilitate user
training and future realizations of your
product. Horton Technical Associates can
provide, or update and maintain, internal
and external documentation for legacy
systems as well as applications under
development.
8. Software
Training.
At Horton Technical Associates, we can
provide total software training solutions
(online, hard-copy, or on-site), and
dedicated help desk support; we also offer
Bilingual (English/Spanish) services.
9. Information
Technology (IT) Support.
We can provide System Administration,
Network Support services, and computer and
network security support; we can also
troubleshoot and resolve recurring software
and hardware problems.
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