[SystemSafety] Another academic safety workshop / why not industrialists ?

[Les Chambers]

Paul
Thanks for this. You've neatly summarised the problem. Companies typically
spend millions learning about the utility of various technologies and are
not willing to give away competitive advantage.
As a result the "good ideas" that emerge from high intensity application of
various technologies are often buried for decades. I plan to discuss one
example of this in an after dinner speech at the SCSC symposium in Bristol.
The reason I can speak about it at all is: this scenario has its origins 40
years ago. The technology in question is now well documented in the
literature and nobody will sue me.

I suspect this problem will never go away. After all, why would a company
send representatives to speak at a seminar and pass around all their
proprietary secrets. Conferences will continue to be populated by academics
talking to each other. This is not necessarily bad because ideas are thrown
around and collective wisdom no doubt improves them.  I was once privileged
to hear Ted Codd speak. He was the originator of the theory behind
relational database technology. A humble researcher, he was astounded that
300 people would turn up to hear anything he might have to say.

One suggested improvement is better collaboration between academia and
industry - the Americans are good at this. I have seen cases where academics
have been seconded, long term, to complex systems projects and have made a
useful contribution. Apply the torch to the belly of academic theory and you
often come up with useful objects. In one case the entire V&V group within
the computer science department of the University was hired away to work on
a large project. I don't think any of the academics ever went back to their
university. Many of them have gone on to stellar careers in industry.

Cheers
Les




-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Stachour, Paul D BIS
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 11:35 PM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Another academic safety workshop / why not
industrialists ?

Peter, Martyn, and all,

    For me, who works at a company that builds safety-systems, the answer is
"Not much".

I suspect that is true for others as well.  Like many industrialists, the
criteria for me to attend
any out-of-town conference is that I must write, submit, and have accepted a
paper to give at such conference.
However, getting clearance for such a paper from Engineering, Marketing,
Legal, etc., not only at the factory
where I work, but from the divisional headquarters as well, is a very
time-consuming and lengthy process.

   And the "lessons learned" kind of paper, which indicates what works for
us, and what does not work for us;
at least in the time/effort required for a given technology and the
respective results, is very unlikely
to be approved, since it could very well be considered as "giving away some
of our company's advantages."

   In particular, if I write something on the order of:
In developing products A & B, we used technology T on A, but not on B, and
found that T either was very helpful,
or that the use of T had no effect on our defect-rates.
   Then
1) That is the kind of experiential paper that I as an industrialist would
consider quite useful.
2) That topic has almost no chance of being approved.

Regards, ..Paul S.

Paul D. Stachour 
Software Quality Assurance 
Detector Electronics Corporation 
A UTC Fire & Security Company 
6901 West 110th Street, Bloomington, MN 55438 USA 
952-941-5665, x8409 
Paul.Stachour at det-tronics.com 
www.det-tronics.com

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 --are solely those of the message originator(s). 
 --The opinions of the author(s) expressed
 --herein do not necessarily state or reflect those
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-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Martyn Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 3:41 AM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: [External] Re: [SystemSafety] Another academic safety workshop

It's a pity, of course, but what's the incentive for an industrialist to
give up the required time (and sometimes travel costs) to PC duties?

Martyn

On 14/01/2015 09:05, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:
> Is it just me, or are others sceptical about a - yet another - 
> workshop on safety which has only academics on the PC?
>
> PBL

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