Latest News
January 2010
London Underground Testing
Zircon engineers are assisting our client in testing the installation of a new signalling control system on the London Underground. This large renewal project has entered the commissioning phase where rigorous testing is required to ensure smooth handover in operation between the old and new systems. Zircon engineers are assisting testing data used by the control system and carrying out functional testing of the system as it is installed.
November 2009
Certification Package Software
Zircon has been awarded another new contract to develop software to enable 3rd Party CCTV Equipment Manufacturers to independently certify equipment before deployment in the field.
August 2009
Automatic Train Regulation Contract
Zircon has been awarded a new contract to assist our client in the development of the Automatic Train Regulation (ATR) component of a metro control centre upgrade project. By predictive modelling of the railway ATR attempts to identify improvements in the scheduling of the trains and then to apply these improvements to the railway.
July 2009
Rail Control Centre Update
Zircon has been awarded a new contract to assist our client in the upgrade of a rail control centre. The upgrade is required due a remodelling of the current railway. The upgrade is a SIL2 development and Zircon will be carrying out data modifications, modifications to the current test tools, Verification and Validation activities and supporting the installation and commissioning of the upgrade.
June 2009
Website Audit
Zircon has been tasked with undertaking an audit of the National Motorway Control System Technical Specifications Management Websites. Zircon will be examining the maintainability of the sites, the disaster recovery policies and backup procedures and the content management process.
May 2009
Data Logger and Analyser
Zircon is currently developing software to log and analyse data produced by our client's train carried signalling equipment.
Data is generated by our client's system and passed to the train carried management system but wasn't being logged for later analysis. Zircon have been contracted to firstly develop a data logger and secondly to develop a generic tool to analyse these and other log files.
March 2008
Railtex '09
Zircon successfully demonstrated our software engineering capabilities for the rail industry at Railtex. Our stand featured a railway simulation platform based around a model railway. This simulates a full working railway complete with:
- Full Interlocking;
- Trains running to a Timetable with Automatic Route Setting (ARS) operation;
- Operator Work Station;
- Train Graph Application;
- Timetable Edit Workstation;
- Condition Monitoring via Wireless Handheld Device.
The model railway mimics real life operation and is used by Zircon as a test bed to demonstrate new products and concepts to clients.
December 2008
Zirconian
The Winter 2008 edition of our newsletter, The Zirconian, has been issued. An online pdf version can be found here.
In this edition we look back on the developments within Zircon, and some of the work carried out for clients over the last year.
December 2008
Be VIGILant
VIGIL is Zircon's first product, aimed at local authorities that are affected by traffic diverting to and from their local road network from the Highways Agency controlled Trunk Road network.
It provides real-time information on the state of the Trunk Road network in the local authority area of interest, and raises alarms when traffic conditions breach user defined thresholds giving early warning of potential problems that may hit the urban roads. Further information can be found on the VIGIL page.
December 2008
IIP Success
Zircon continues to meet the requirements of the Investors in People standard, having yet again passed the regular 3 year assessment. The assessor commented that Zircon's "HR processes are strong and continue to be strengthened on an ongoing basis" and that there "continues to be a very clear commitment to learning, training and development and this is clearly reinforced by the high investment that takes place".
Zircon have also recently chosen to undertake The Skills Pledge, as a further commitment to ensure that their employees are skilled, competent and able to make a full contribution to the success of the organisation.
August 2008
Requirements Gathering
Zircon has started work gathering requirements for the next phase of our clients' Automatic Routesetting System product development. Zircon has recently completed work on the first phase of the timetable processor element and this next stage will add further functionality.
August 2008
New Recruit
Gary has joined the Zircon team. Gary is a recent graduate from the University of West England having successfully graduated with a First Class BSc Hons Degree in Robotics.
June 2008
BSI Audit Success
Once again Zircon Software has successfully passed the regular BSI audit of the ISO 9001:2000(TickIT) accredited quality system with no non-conformities identified.
June 2008
MOT Computerisation: Handheld Device Type Approval Success
Zircon Software has carried out the first successful Type Approval Test of a MoT Computerisation Handheld Device. Zircon has been working with VOSA and Siemens to develop the type approval procedure and test tool and has also provided support to the handheld device developers as they develop their products. The first of these products has now been successfully tested and received approval to be deployed in MOT test stations.
February 2008
Comms Protocol Conversion
Zircon has undertaken prototyping work for our client to enable legacy equipment to communicate with new IP based equipment. Zircon carried out investigative work before producing demonstration software that proved the concept to our client who will undertake its full implementation.
January 2008
CCTV Certification Package Enhancements
Zircon is to enhance the user interface of a Certification Package developed previously by Zircon that is used by suppliers of Highways Agency 2nd Generation CCTV equipment to self certify their equipment to Highways Agency standards.
December 2007
Code formalisation
Zircon is to supply an engineer to formalise existing legacy code that is part of a data preparation tool.
November 2007
End of Project Audit
Zircon is to carry out on behalf of our client an end of project audit of a 3rd party development to check that documentation is complete; review design specifications for quality and completeness and trace requirements to design; and review source code to ensure its future maintainability.
September 2007
Test Support
Zircon is to provide our client with a test engineer to carry out testing of a new rail system.