[SystemSafety] A Fire Code for Software?

[Martyn Thomas]

Andy - drop the second shoe! What happened?

Martyn


On 08/03/2018 12:14, Andy Ashworth wrote:
> I have experienced this difference of appproach very recently on a
> major infra-structure project. The project in question involved
> thedesign and construction of a 13km light-rail line with a tunnel
> section, 10 surface stations, 3 sub-surface stations, and a
> maintenance depot / yard. The engineering members of the project
> management team were largely civil engineers with experience of
> tunneling and permanent way. 
>
> The project schedule assumed that the overall project could be
> delivered based on delivery of discrete components. There was no
> consideration of how the components would be integrated to achieve
> customer requirements. Safety assurance was meant to be against IEC
> 61508, however the civil engineering types had no awareness of this
> standard and planned all tasks based on post-design safety assurance
> through testing. For a civil engineer, there is little or no need for
> them to consider integrated system behaviour - a tunnel, a bridge, or
> any other structure is largely passive when it comes to failure modes;
> whereas functional safety requires a more pro-active consideration of
> how things work and how they fail. 
>
> Until safety and the role of systems engineering is better understood
> throughout the whol engineering community, there will be differences
> in approach - essentially civil and mechanical engineers use design
> codes / standards that give appropriate margins in loading of
> structures - there is no need to consider further the failure modes of
> a bridge or structure, the code/standard has already done this. If you
> have “hardcore died-in-the-wool” civil engineers in all project
> management roles, it can be extremely difficult and stressful to
> educate them of the need to consider how systems work.
>
> This project, and prior experience in similar environments, had made
> me question my role in engineering.
>
> Andy

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