[SystemSafety] Functional hazard analysis, does it work?

Wed Jan 20 09:30:40 CET 2016

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On 2016-01-20 08:11 , DREW Rae wrote:
> You sound exactly like the homeopaths who protest that scientists won't fund clinical trials
> of their latest preparation. Every one of them claims that their preparation is a good one, and
> if people wouldn't only try it they'd realise the benefits. They are willfully blind of the
> fact that the likelihood of them being right is so low, that it isn't worth the opportunity
> cost to even investigate their claims.  If you have a better technique for hazard analysis, the
> burden of proof is squarely on you to show it. Not to demonstrate narrow properties, but to
> show that if a company is designing a system, they are more likely to make a better system by
> using your technique.

This sounds to me like a very complicated moral universe you inhabit and I'm not at all sure that
I buy into it.

My intended audience is people who regularly perform commercial HazAns and are interested in
improving them. I think relative completeness is an important property of an effective HazAn, and
in my experience so do most of my intended audience (witness Matthew's request). The question
arises: is there an effective way of attaining it, and of showing objectively to third parties
(such as assessors) that you have done so?

I think that is a very good question. I answer "yes". If you ever perform a HazAn where the
clients are really concerned about relative completeness, do get in touch.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de