[SystemSafety] Software Safety Assessment

[RICQUE Bertrand (SAGEM DEFENSE SECURITE)]

In process and manufacturing industries, we experience since the nineties two opposite trends :

·         The clarification, harmonisation and strengthening of standards leading to more clear and stringent requirements

·         The reduction of the budgets, of the basic competencies of the actors leading to poorer engineering

The  context is fed by requirements from buyers to lower the costs and competition between suppliers to satisfy the buyers requirements.

The first who says it doesn’t work, or that there are limits to such a trend has lost …

The standards thus, at the same time, reflect under this pressure openings to “new” technologies (e.g. possibility to mix safety and non-safety) and requirements to deploy such “novelties” with adequate discipline and techniques.

Of course everybody stops at the first part of the above sentence. However less and less actors are able to understand the second part and to explain it to decision makers.

So the new standards are not “really” solving anything, but merely creating new problems more deeply embedded in the systems, until the next catastrophy.

Bertrand Ricque
Program Manager
Optronics and Defence Division
Sights Program
Mob : +33 6 87 47 84 64
Tel : +33 1 58 11 96 82
Bertrand.ricque at sagem.com

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of C. Michael Holloway
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 1:54 PM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Software Safety Assessment

On 7/9/15 12:31 AM, Matthew Squair wrote:

... See for example the issue of DO-178C, which resolved a number of recognized problems with its predecessor 178B.
I believe this sentence is misleading.  Some of the changes made in DO-178C were *intended to address* recognized problems in 178B. Whether those changes *resolved* the problems cannot be determined at this time. We won't begin to know until DO-178C is used in practice many times.

(As an aside, I suspect that if you asked members of the committee/working group that produced DO-178C what percentage of changes between B and C addressed 'recognized problems', you would get answers ranging from 1% to 50%. I'd be happy to tell people my own answer in private, but not on this list.)
--
cMh

C. Michael Holloway, Senior Research Engineer
Safety Critical Avionics Systems Branch, Research Directorate
NASA Langley Research Center / MS 130 Hampton VA 23681-2199 USA
office phone: +1.757.864.1701 often forwarded to +1.757.598.1707

The words in this message are mine alone; neither blame nor credit NASA for them.
#
" Ce courriel et les documents qui lui sont joints peuvent contenir des informations confidentielles, être soumis aux règlementations relatives au contrôle des exportations ou ayant un caractère privé. S'ils ne vous sont pas destinés, nous vous signalons qu'il est strictement interdit de les divulguer, de les reproduire ou d'en utiliser de quelque manière que ce soit le contenu. Toute exportation ou réexportation non autorisée est interdite Si ce message vous a été transmis par erreur, merci d'en informer l'expéditeur et de supprimer immédiatement de votre système informatique ce courriel ainsi que tous les documents qui y sont attachés."
******
" This e-mail and any attached documents may contain confidential or proprietary information and may be subject to export control laws and regulations. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any dissemination, copying of this e-mail and any attachments thereto or use of their contents by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited. Unauthorized export or re-export is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please advise the sender immediately and delete this e-mail and all attached documents from your computer system."
#
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman/private/systemsafety/attachments/20150709/2cae7cb1/attachment-0001.html>