PPT Exhibits and Its Employees Present at the 2009 International Systems Safety Conference

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., August 15, 2009- PPT served as an exhibitor and its employees presented at the 27th International Systems Safety Conference.

The Conference was held August 3-7 in Huntsville, Ala. The conference theme, "The Win-Win Solution," emphasized that the developer (supplier) and user (customer) are both winners when system safety processes and procedures are implemented throughout the system life cycle.

PPT’s Chief Engineer, Greg Turgeon, presented a tutorial, “Practical Application of DO-178B for Safety Critical Software Systems.” DO-178B is a guideline used for certification of safety critical software in aircraft systems. Mr. Turgeon provided an overview of the software process using DO-178B and how it can be applied practically to existing systems. In addition, he provided an overview of DO-178B and how it fits into the system and software lifecycles, and identified key areas that it differs from other software engineering processes.

Additionally, Greg Turgeon, in collaboration with PPT software engineer, Petra Price, submitted a paper titled, “Feasibility Study for Software Safety Requirements Analysis Using Formal Methods,” The paper focused on the method and results of a study conducted by the authors that investigated the use of a model checking tool applied to set of software requirements. Mr. Turgeon and Ms. Price found that the method was effective in identifying requirements ambiguities and defects early in the software lifecycle when problems are the least expensive to correct. The study also revealed that some of the requirements defects they identified were quite complex and would be difficult for a human reviewer to discover.