[SystemSafety] Software Safety Assessment

Wed Jul 8 13:49:58 CEST 2015

This is the same in France roughly. In addition it is probable that if checklist for A was produced, it would be understood as a proof of negligence.

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 Martyn Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 1:48 PM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Software Safety Assessment

In the UK, the governing legislation is the 1974 HSWA. As a duty holder, one is required to assess the risks to workers and the general public and to reduce those that are not and to mitigate those risksso far as reasonably practicable (i.e. to the point where the cost of further risk reduction would be very disproportionate to the benefit realised).

If standard X was replaced because it was considered inadequate to satisfy the duty under the Act, then it should no longer be used. Moreover, if Project A is still in use, then the duty holders must question whether they have fulfilled their duties under the Act by following Standard X - in particular, it may be considered negligent if they have not reassessed A against the revised standard to establish whether the risks of continued operation are still ALARP. If the "improved checklist" is an internal company document, then both the checklist and the revised standard would seem to be significant documents that a reasonable person would take into account in assessing whether the duties had been fulfilled.

A reassessment should also follow any material changes to the operating environment.

These are my personal views only. I am not a lawyer and the views of HSE or a UK Court may well differ from mine.

Martyn

On 08/07/2015 10:53, Carl Sandom wrote:
Consider the following scenario:

In 2004 Project A software was assessed against a safety standard (let's call it Standard X). Standard X had a very prescriptive list of software safety requirements and a simple checklist was used for assessing SIL1 compliance.

In 2014, Project B began to integrate significant new functionality into Project A. Standard X, which was by 2014 an obsolete standard, was used to assess the significantly smaller software baseline of Project B. Under modern scrutiny, the simple Standard X checklist used for Project A in 2004 was not as explicit as it could have been and it was decided to use an improved checklist for Project B.

A couple of important questions can be raised with this scenario:

1. Is it acceptable to use an obsolete safety standard to assess software?

2. Is the SIL1 claim for 10 year old Project A invalid because the checklist could have been better?

3. If Project B used the old checklist from Project A would that be adequate?

I've been having some interesting discussions with the Project Managers involved, any thoughts?

Regards
Carl

_________________________________

Dr. Carl Sandom CErgHF CEng PhD

Director

iSys Integrity Ltd.

+44 7967 672560

carl at isys-integrity.com<mailto:carl at isys-integrity.com>

www.isys-integrity.com<http://www.isys-integrity.com>

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