Kent D. Palmer -- Systems Engineer, Software Engineer & Technologist

Raytheon -- June 1999 to Present
Principle Systems Engineer
Systems Engineering Process Improvement 

Most recent assignment: 
   Systems Engineering Process Development and Deployment
  C3I Air Defense Systems Pre-proposal Activities

Systems Engineering Process Assessment based on CMMI and EIA 731
Systems Engineering Project Improvement Team Leader
Six Sigma Baselining 
Systems Engineering Project Reporting Improvement
Systems Engineering Process Guidelines development
Systems Engineering Process Web Requirements and Design
Systems Engineering Process Liaison with Projects
Systems Engineering Methods Consulting
Systems Engineering Process Architecture Development
Trained CMMI Assessor
Trained Six Sigma Specialist
Trained Integrated Process Development System Deployment Specialist
Coordination with Program Management concerning SE ROM bids and SE proposals

Developed and delivered a course on Software Requirements and Design Methodologies at the local University of California Irvine Extension (Fall 1999)

Boeing -- September 1985 to June 1999

  Software Engineer and part time Systems Engineer
Specializing in Real-time Embedded System Design & Ada/C Implementation.
Focused on Architectural Design, Software Requirements, and also Simulation development. 

      Last major assignment: 
   Team Leader for both Systems and Software Requirements as well as Software Architectural Design, and then Software Developer for Detailed Design, Code and Test on a Satellite Sensor Payload System
   Other areas of competence . . .
        Software Project Team Leader
      Architectural Designer using Real-time and Object Oriented Methodologies for Software Engineering.
      Requirements Analyst for both System level and Software level requirements.
      Object-oriented Simulation Design & Implementation.
      Practitioner using Formal Requirements Methods for Systems and Software Engineering.
      Software Process and Systems Process Consultant and Technologist.
Design Methodology Research and Tool Development.
Formal Requirements Methods Research and Technology Transfer.
Human Interface Software Design & Prototyping.
Former Software Engineering Process Group Chairman, Process Assessor and Change Agent.
Lead in Software and Systems Engineering Process, Methods, and Tools development and implementation
Technology Transfer Specialist.
EXPERIENCE:

Systems Engineering Process Development and Deployment at Raytheon (most recent position)
Moved to Raytheon in order to assume a position as Principle Systems Engineer directed at improving the Systems Engineering Process capability across the Fullerton site. In this capacity I participated in a Process Based Assessment using EIA731 which determined current Systems Engineering maturity. I also participated in a Raytheon Six Sigma Baselining effort for Air Defense Systems Product Line. I attended the Systems Engineering Review meetings and took minutes as well as working to improve the reporting process so that it better reflected the actual situation on the projects. We developed a Systems Engineering Reporting package and also Systems Engineering Process Guidelines. I worked on the requirements and design of a Systems Engineering Process Oriented web site using XML. I produced a directives architecture and helped to digest and interpret the Raytheon Standard Process called the Integrated Product Development System. I also participated in the development of pre-proposal bids on at least one Air Defense program. In general my job has been to work with the Systems Engineering process owner to find ways to increase Systems Engineering process maturity across the entire organization. In that process I had direct liaison with several projects and helped then tailor the existing process and develop internal systems engineering processes while looking for best practices and artifact examples and templates that might be used more widely in the organization.

Satellite Ground Systems IR&D Experience at Boeing: (lasted about five months)
Approximately five months working on the systems engineering of a ground system based on Altairis Mission Control System. Worked on applying the Finite State Modeling Method to large multi-satellite constellations and developing the next generation ground system. This entailed building a simulation of the multi-satellite constellation and modeling the human interface of the ground system to control the simulation. I helped manage the conversion of the old satellite simulation software into something useable for the new system. I helped develop the processes and methods that would be used in building the prototypes. I also helped develop new concepts for dealing with multi-satellite configurations.

Satellite Payload Development Experience at Boeing:  (latest for about 2 years ending February 1999)

Approximately two years ago I began working on the SBIRS LADS project as the software engineering team lead. This involved me in systems engineering work as well and gave me the opportunity to apply the methods and processes I had learned about in my research at the Science Center. I used the Gurevich Abstract State Machine Method to define the functionality of the SDPC at the Software Requirements level. I also interfaced with the systems engineers on the project and attempted to work out Systems level issues. On this project I also applied the DARTS method to define the software architecture for the SDPC. We also used ObjecTime to simulate this architecture. Finally, from the end of architectural design I did detailed design, code and module test of the Payload Control Processor routing, and Datatap sections of the final system.

Formal Requirements Methods and Systems Engineering Research Experience at Rockwell:  (about 1 year)

Preceding my tenure on the SBIRS LADS project, I had become interested in Systems Engineering and the necessity of its improvement in order to provide a basis for software engineering work downstream. I applied to work at the Science Center and spent one year researching Formal Requirements Methods and the Systems Engineering processes across the company. In that research I found a method called Gurevich Abstract State Machine Method which seemed to have a great deal of promise for developing a better requirements engineering process that would actually work when applied to real projects. I wrote several working papers on this method and applied it to small test problems.

Software Process Experience at Rockwell:  (about 5 years)

Prior to the Science Center I was assigned to be the Software Process Chair for Marine Systems. In that capacity I wrote the Software and Systems Engineering Processes for Marine Systems and participated in the Process development across all engineering functions within Marine Systems. We also worked to apply the processes that we had designed up until Marine Systems was merged with Missile Systems Division, then I transferred to the new SEPG and continued Process work. While working on Software Process, I researched the basis of software process and attempted to find better models of software processes in other disciplines. This research culminated in my presentation of Advanced Process Architectures tutorial at the national SEPG conference. The work on process tied together the previous work I had done on software tools and methods, providing the overall context for understanding all aspects of software development.

Simulation Development Experience at Rockwell:  (about 2 years)

For approximately two years I worked on simulation projects in the IR&D Marine Systems Command and Control System Design Lab. This work lasted approximately two years. In that lab I built a simulation that resided on two SPARC stations and drove User Interfaces done in Xwindows on special purpose consoles. I designed and implemented a means for multiple simulations to interoperate across the network using sockets. I built a "post-office" function that allowed the two simulators to talk to each other and which would allow data, events and object invocations across the network between registered objects. One simulator simulated ships, submarines and various threats moving in the ocean while the other simulation emulated the various states of the command and control system of one particular submarine that were reflected on the consoles. The simulation was done in Modsim which is an object oriented simulation language. The simulation was driven by scripts which commanded changes in action of the various simulated objects at particular times. Some objects would go into alternative avoidance routines on the sensing of other threat objects automatically. The effect was that you could pretend you were driving a particular submarine through one of several predetermined scenarios, but that if you deviated from the scenario then other things might happen as they would in the real world of ship navigation. 

Architectural Design as well as Development Experience at Rockwell:  (about 2 years)

My Simulation work was preceded by two projects called ICS and RAN on which newly introduced Design methods and tools were used. The RAN project was in Ada and gave me my first experience using Ada on a project. I C S lasted about six months stopping at the end of architectural design and RAN a year and a half going through the entire life cycle. On those projects I noticed that people were not using the tools "properly" so I began studying how they were actually using them. What I discovered was that they were attempting to represent tasking in methodologies that did not explicitly allow for the representation of that aspect of the design. This set me to studying various methods that did allow for tasking and distributed processing to be represented. I wrote various papers about my findings. Since then there have been many developments in the Software Architectural Design Methods, culminating with UML and its real-time extensions. I have kept up on this area and continue to research the new  methods as they evolve. After that I was assigned to the Marine Systems Command and Control System Design Laboratory to develop a simulation on which I also used these methods.

Software Tools and Design Environment Development Experience at Rockwell: (about 2 years beginning 1985)

I was hired into the Company as a Software Technologist and was instrumental in setting up a software design environment for Marine Systems. My first job at the Company was to set up the Computer Aided Software Design Lab in Marine Systems. That environment used IDE Software Though Pictures and Framemaker, but we also used Cadre Teamwork and Interleaf when that combination became a campus standard. I helped set up the environment and train engineers to use both the tools and the methods that this environment supported.

Prior Experience:  Worked as Systems Analyst and Real-time Software Designer (1983-1985)

Education: Ph.D. Philosophy of Science and Systems Theory (1982); B.Sc (1973)

Kent D. Palmer P.O. Box 1632 Orange CA 92856-1632 (714) 633-9508 palmer@think.net