Course Aim

The System Safety for Safety Specialists course introduces system safety concepts and practices that will allow safety specialists to carry out system safety activities in an acquisition program. System safety as a specialist discipline can be challenging to carry out for a major program or project. The course provides attendees with an understanding of the fundamental principles of system safety and how safety management and engineering activities can be integrated into an acquisition program. The course is oriented towards those who require a comprehensive introduction to the discipline. Course learning objectives are as follows:

• Describe the system safety lifecycle process and how it relates to the management of safety risks during the system acquisition lifecycle.

• Identify key activities of the system safety program planning process including the identification of stakeholders, safety criteria, organisational interfaces and regulatory engagement.

• Describe the role of a safety case in providing a credible argument supported by evidence as the safety of the system being acquired. Identify the stages of safety case development and importance of this as an upfront project activity

• Identify the specific system safety challenges posed by complex hardware and software, human factors and off the shelf acquisition.

• Describe the process of hazard identification and assessment for a program including techniques and challenges. Demonstrate the linkage between hazard identification and closed loop hazard tracking.

• Describe and demonstrate key safety assessment techniques used to characterise hazard causal factors and associated likelihood.

• Describe and discuss various system safety applicable standards, their relation to the acquisition lifecycle, advantages and limits.

Course Outline

Introduction. History |Key Definitions |Safety criteria |Hazards and Risk |System safety lifecycle| Integration Issues | Tracking systems | The hazard log | The safety case

Planning. Planning |Acquirer and supplier roles |Scheduling and resourcing| Stakeholders | Safety Interfaces |Regulatory engagement |The development lifecycles |Planning class exercise

Safety cases. | History | Safety arguments and evidence | Lifecycle of the safety case | Safety cases modular vs monolithic | Safety case worked example

Hazard identification and assessment | Identification techniques |Lifecycle stages |Hazard description models |Integration of analyses| Hazard tracking system| Relation to the safety argument

Safety assessment techniques |Technique types |Relation to program objectives |Fault Tree Analysis| Event tree analysis| Failure Modes and Effects Criticality Analysis

System safety standards. |Purposes of standards| Assurance versus program | Military standards| Civil standards |Regulatory role and engagement strategies

Challenges |Complex software and hardware |Assurance standards| Managing human error | Off the shelf components and safety | Case studies

Course Material

The following resources will be provided to attendees of this course:

1. A PDF copy of the PowerPoint presentations used for the course.

2. A copy of the presenter’s book, Critical Uncertainties: The Theory and Practice of System Safety