<div dir="ltr">I've only had a quick glance at the Twitter thread, but I've read the government rebuttal.<div><br></div><div>The FT article suggests that it was naive to try to develop new designs and that it would have been better to focus on manufacturing existing designs under licence. The government rebuttal points out that the government's strategy focused on three pillars:</div><div><br></div><div>1. procuring more devices from existing manufacturers overseas</div><div>2. scaling up production of existing ventilator suppliers</div><div>3. working with industry to design and manufacture new devices.</div><div><br></div><div>This three pillar approach seems very sensible to me.</div><div><br></div><div>I think the FT article underestimates the difficulty of setting up a new production line to manufacture an existing design under license. The intent of the third pillar is presumably to design simple devices that serve a limited purpose, but which can be manufactured quickly and cheaply.</div><div><br></div><div>If some of the suppliers chose to create simple, low cost designs that satisfied the bare minimum function, and these designs proved to be unsuitable, surely the fault lies with the specification and not with the implementation? The FT article seems to suggest that suppliers with experience of medical devices would have known that the requirements were incomplete. I think that greater care in specifying the requirements would have avoided nugatory work. Nevertheless, I don't think the problems with some of the early designs invalidate the approach as claimed by the FT article; rather, the specification should be updated, which is exactly what's happened.</div><div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><p><a name="SignatureSanitizer_SafeHtmlFilter_UNIQUE_ID_SafeHtmlFilter__MailAutoSig"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Yours,</span></a></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:10pt">Dewi Daniels | Director | Software Safety Limited</span><br></p><p><span lang="FR" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Telephone +44 7968 837742 | Email </span><span lang="FR" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:purple"><a href="mailto:ddaniels@verocel.com" target="_blank">d</a><a href="mailto:ewi.daniels@software-safety.com" target="_blank">ewi.daniels@software-safety.com</a></span></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Software Safety Limited is a company registered in England and Wales. Company number: </font><font face="Arial, sans-serif">9390590</font><font face="Arial, sans-serif">. Registered office: Fairfield, 30F Bratton Road, West Ashton, Trowbridge</font><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">, United Kingdom </span><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">BA14 6AZ</span></p></div></div></div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, 19 Apr 2020 at 19:17, <<a href="mailto:yorklist@philwilliams.f2s.com">yorklist@philwilliams.f2s.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">... and a detailed rebuttal from <a href="http://gov.uk" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">gov.uk</a><br>
<br>
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-ft-article-and-twitter-thread-by-peter-foster" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-ft-article-and-twitter-thread<br>
-by-peter-foster</a><br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: systemsafety <<a href="mailto:systemsafety-bounces@lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de" target="_blank">systemsafety-bounces@lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de</a>> On<br>
Behalf Of Derek M Jones<br>
Sent: 19 April 2020 18:42<br>
To: <a href="mailto:systemsafety@lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de" target="_blank">systemsafety@lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de</a><br>
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Muddled thinking punctures plan for British<br>
ventilator<br>
<br>
Dewi,<br>
<br>
> I've provided the Google link since the FT article appears to be <br>
> behind a paywall.<br>
<br>
An informative twitter thread:<br>
<a href="https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1251434219139665920" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1251434219139665920</a><br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Derek M. Jones           Evidence-based software engineering<br>
tel: +44 (0)1252 520667  blog:<a href="http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com</a><br>
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