Concurrent Safety Analysis: A Method for Information Exchange between Systems and Safety Engineers

Abstract

The work of safety experts includes evaluating the risks of a system failure and their associated system architectures that provide these functions. Identifying faults of single system components that may lead to system failures is part of their work. But in a changing world that creates increasingly more complex systems, this component-based approach becomes less effective [NL13]. It may also not be adequate because it is more and more difficult to identify all possible failure sources and system combinations that may have severe consequences. In [AB14a] the “back pack problem of early development” was identified and by carrying out safety assessments early, a mitigation strategy was presented. It was also shown if safety aspects are integrated in the design from the beginning, a reduction of development risk and saving time during develop-ment is possible. But in [AB14a] only applying a qualitative FTA done by systems engineering in the early development was shown. Therefore this paper will extend the shown approach and present a concept and an implementation based on a holistic systems thinking approach.