Our Work

K. J. Ross & Associates expertise in software verification and validation has been used on a number of large and complex projects for some of Australia's biggest companies and government sectors .

Queensland Department of Health

Testing Centre of Excellence
Queensland Health, like many health focused organisations, has a range of technology constantly being acquired, refreshed, maintained or retired.  Some technologies have heavy clinical and patient safety focus e.g. ICU, Radiology and Anesthetics. Some technologies have strong legislative requirements e.g. individual data privacy, research ethics, public safety licensing. As one of the largest organizations in Australia, with over 60,000 employees, there are also a lot of traditional business systems technology e.g. personnel/payroll, data centres, desktop SOE, data network, PABX and handsets.

K. J. Ross & Associates were engaged to assist establish a Testing Centre of Excellence that could give a consistent governance to all of the technology projects. Right sizing the investment in testing so as to ensure Integrated Risk Management and Change Management could make business decisions based on reliable test results. The journey of transformation is from a culture of technology risk aversion to one that can embrace technology change as a health business enabler.

Testing Services
A well as establishing the Centre of Excellence K. J. Ross & Associates staff have been engaged in multiple projects using the methods and templates produced. Projects thus far have included: developing a new Mental Health application, automation of HL7 tests to validate a web services version of client directory, acquiring an Anesthetics record keeping system, transforming Radiology from film to digital modality, moving of Data Centres between buildings, upgrading of PABX and wireless handsets, evaluating personal duress systems for nursing staff.

International Standards Organisation

Representation on ISO/IEC 29119 Software Testing Standard
ISO/IEC 29119 Software Testing is a new international standard for software testing that is currently under development by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 Working Group 26 (WG26). The aim is to produce one international standard for software testing that covers the entire software testing lifecycle, throughout the analysis, design, development and maintenance of any software product or system.

ISO/IEC 29119 comprises four parts:
  • Part 1: Concepts & Vocabulary
  • Part 2: Test Process
  • Part 3: Test Documentation
  • Part 4: Test Techniques

The standard will be replacing a number of existing IEEE and BSI standards:

As part of their ongoing committment towards raising the profession of software testing, K. J. Ross & Associates supports Ms. Tafline Murnane, a senior consultant from their Melbourne office, as a Standards Australia representative on ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 WG26 (the working group responsible for developing the standard). Tafline is co-editor of parts 2 and 4 of the standard.

For more information on ISO/IEC 29119 Software Testing, visit the Presentations page to view recent presentations given by Tafline on the standard at various conferences, or visit the homepage of the standard at http://softwaretestingstandard.org.

Westinghouse Rail Systems Australia

Test Automation Framework
WRSA have engaged K. J. Ross & Associates for over 10 years to establish testing practices within the safety-critical space. In the last 9 months, K. J. Ross & Associates has performed more than 1900 hours of consulting time for Westinghouse Rail systems Australia for two main safety critical areas:
  • Automatic Train Protection System – Performed planning, test design, unit testing, execution and automation of functional tests for Automatic Train Protection system. Developed Software Simulator to reduce testing against hardware simulator and track based testing.
  • Developed automation tool which now executes over 250,000 test cases a week against a railway SCADA safety-critical monitoring system, including all functionality of this safety critical system. Automated failover testing. Participated in allow testing phases from Test Design to execution.

National Australia Bank

Test Process Improvement
Utilising TOM™ surveys and TPI® , K. J. Ross & Associates reviewed testing processes across all Test groups in NAB Capital to baseline testing processes and identify improvement priorities that aligned with business objectives.

Test Data Management Strategy
K. J. Ross & Associates reviewed test data requirements and test data management practices across the Technology Banking Australia group within NAB and provided recommendations and a road map for process improvement to the Testing Practice Management team.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Load and Performance Testing
K. J. Ross & Associates have been engaged by CBA’s Performance Testing group for a range of activities from Load Testing of the FIX protocol to establishing Load Testing Environmental Requirements for CommSec. Along with technical roles, K. J. Ross & Associates consultants have been managing performance testers to ensure framework and have been establishing Load Testing Strategies and identifying process improvement opportunities.

Suncorp

Testing Centre of Excellence
Suncorp is a large banking and insurance conglomerate based in Queensland. K. J. Ross & Associates were engaged to assist the transformation of testing into a Software Testing Centre of Excellence which offers shared services for testing to different parts of the business. This work involved developing a vision and roadmap for changing from 90 staff delivery testing services within independent lines of business to a model which provided group synergies and improvement initiatives across the entire team.

Test Environment Virtualisation
K. J. Ross & Associates were engaged to define and implement a strategy to virtualise Suncorp’s Testing Environments including various legacy serial devices/peripherals. Using VMWare, Suncorp achieved significant savings by reducing the hardware requirements whilst enabling easier remote access to testing environments and networked based serial devices.

ANZ

Specialist Consulting
K. J. Ross & Associates have been engaged on numerous occasions by ANZ for a variety of services:

  • Project Performance Testing - Assisted ANZ's internal Load and performance testing unit to plan and implement load projects using LoadRunner across a variety of projects.
  • IVR Performance Testing - performance test planning, design and execution for the iPhone IVR upgrade project
  • Test Automation - K. J. Ross & Associates were engaged to develop a test automation strategy and implementation across a variety of projects, including Web-based and SIEBEL-based applications for ANZ Retail and Channel Technology and ANZ Mortgages.
  • Test Driven Development Mentoring - K. J. Ross & Associates provided the ANZ Enterprise and Services Technology group with mentoring and skills upgrade for .NET development team
  • Test Team Review - Identified Team roles, Analysed Staff Competencies, Reviewed Suitability of Current Processes, Reviewed Suitability of Current Communications and Identified Training Requirements
  • Test Resource Review - Identified Team roles, Analysed Staff Competencies and Provided recommendations of role suitability and Training Requirements.

Department of Education, Training and the Arts (DETA)

Testing Services / Test Project Outsourcing
K. J. Ross & Associates has been engaged to perform the complete testing function for the OneSchool programme, an initiative from the Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts (DETA). Starting in February 2007, DETA has engaged K. J. Ross & Associates Testing Services to develop the Test Strategy for this programme of work and perform the following Testing Activities:

  • System Functional Testing (including End-to-end Testing and Integration Testing)
  • Load and Performance Testing (including Stress Testing and Stability Testing)
  • Heuristic based usability evaluation
  • User-Centred Usability Testing
  • User Acceptance Testing coordination (planning, managing and guiding business testers for acceptance testing)
  • Access Control Testing
  • Compatibility Testing

These activities have also been performed in regression testing cycles each quarter since the first major release. In addition providing testing services for the project, K. J. Ross & Associates have identified and started implementing a number of initiatives:

  • Test Automation Framework – Reusing existing IP, K. J. Ross & Associates is developing a spreadsheet based action word framework to leverage testing tools to help promote reuse, decrease maintainability and separate the technical and business testing functions to make better use of internal resources
  • Test Framework Establishment – customising K. J. Ross & Associates internal process documentation to establish a Software Test Lifecycle, Testing Processes, Procedures, Role competency requirements and integrating in tools. Setting up this supporting testing infrastructure will aid DETA to develop internal capability and staff a testing unit.
  • Behaviour Tree Analysis – BTA is a new requirements analysis technique that has shown to save 10-15% of the entire project budget for Defence clients. K. J. Ross & Associates is leveraging this technique to identify requirements and design incidents earlier in the lifecycle, thereby significantly decreasing rework further into the development lifecycle.

Deutsche Bank

Production Monitoring
Deutsche Bank utilises K. J. Ross & Associates to perform Production Monitoring against their online Futures and Options Trading system. The total suite results in over a quarter million tests run daily by K. J. Ross & Associates inhouse developed production monitoring tool to ensure exchanges open correctly, prices are correct as per an independent feed and the various trading hubs across the globe are available - all in their production environments.

Deutsche Bank utilise a complex set of alerting rules to receive alerts via a custom dashboard, SMS or email in real time with different users subscribed to different alerts or combinations of alerts. Daily, Weekly and Monthly reports and trends provide various information regarding availability, performance and functional correctness.

Government Superannuation Office (QSuper)

Strategic Consulting and Test Management
K. J. Ross & Associates have been engaged by the Government Superannuation Office in Queensland (now QSuper) for more than 7000 hours of Consulting, Testing Services and Training since 2006. K. J. Ross & Associates provided assistance across multiple projects and initiatives including:
  • Coordination of business testers for the roll out of a Microsoft based Standard Operating Environment
  • Identification of performance benchmarks in a Superannuation claims system
  • Test Management and Coordination for a AS400 migration project
  • Test Automation Framework – Developing and action word framework and establishing an automation strategy to reduce the costs of regression testing and allowing non-techincal resources to assist with automation.
  • Establishing of a Testing Unit – K. J. Ross & Associates helped establish a Software Test Lifecycle, Testing processes, tools and procedures and an engagement model for a new testing unit within GSO. K. J. Ross & Associates then helped recruit suitable staff to fulfil the testing unit and provided transition and mentoring.
  • Test Management and testing services across a variety of testing projects whilst the testing unit was established.

K. J. Ross & Associates are happy to report that this testing unit has been in operation without the aide of K. J. Ross & Associates for nearly 12 months, completely supporting the testing function for the various business groups within GSO.

Compaq Australia

Test Outsourcing for High Availability File Server
K. J. Ross & Associates undertook the testing role as a part of the Wattle project. The Wattle project developed a state-of-the-art clustered file server system that offers unrivaled scalability, availability and ease of network management. The testing role involved strategy definition, planning, design, implementation and execution of all tests, including comprehensive tests covering functionality, integrity, performance and robustness.

Software Verification Research Centre

Independent Evaluation (Active Missile Decoy System)
K. J. Ross & Associates were part of the team performing independent evaluation of the Active Missile Decoy Fire Control System for the Department of Defence. The role undertaken was to determine the verification contractor's compliance to Department of Defence safety standards and to appraise the overall quality and safety of the development.

Tallecom Software

Independent Acceptance Testing
K. J. Ross & Associates developed and implemented a system testing / acceptance testing programme for Tallecom Software’s TALC2000 product. This involved developing automated tests and supporting test documentation that could be used by the company with minimum of user interaction to test TALC2000 prior to each release, thus assuring the quality of the product before it is passed on to customers.

Software Verification Research Centre

Safety Management Planning (ANZAC Ship Project)
K. J. Ross & Associates was part of a consulting team advising the Royal Australian Navy on Safety Management for the ANZAC Ship Command and Control System project. This work proposed the method to be adopted to perform a Preliminary Hazard Analysis, which identifies those areas of the system that could pose significant safety risks. The results would be used to further investigate whether a suitable level of integrity has been provided within the development of the weapons system.

Tallecom Software

Test Design and Management System
Tallecom Software are currently extending their product portfolio to support test case design and test process management. Our services are being used to develop requirements for the product and to design and implement the functionality to be supported. This work requires a thorough examination of test design and management techniques, and proposals on how automatic assistance for these techniques can implemented. The tool is intended to coordinate activities surrounding existing test automation products, such as that provided by TALC2000.

Foxboro Australia

Specialist V & V Consulting
Foxboro Australia utilised our services during two of their projects: developing a safety-related system for controlling power and ventilation for Hong Kong's Mass Transit Rail Corporation; and development of a railway control systems for Kowloon Canton Railway Corporation.

Our services were used to assist in a number of areas, including verification and validation planning, test development, test tool evaluation, a preparation of phase-end summary reports. For these safety-critical projects Foxboro Australia are to comply with specific safety standard. These standards mandate a high level of integrity to be built in to the software, and Foxboro are implementing a number of the recommended verification and validation techniques. Parts of this work include review of procedures and practices, and evaluation of verification and validation tools, such as requirements analysis and automated testing tools.

Case Studies

To read more about our projects, download our Case Studies: