Safety Critical Systems

A guide to developing safety critical system processes with detailed information on approaches to current and future safety systems

Safety Critical Systems discusses and maps the relationship between various processes of safety critical systems processes, their interdependence, and necessary elements of independence. The book describes the types of systems currently in use, their structures, and their associated creation processes, gathering practical lessons primarily from the field of railway signaling and emphasizing the critical elements that render the requirements, design, analysis, implementation, and management processes robust.

The concept of “orthogonal views” is introduced to analyze the processes that surround the creation of a safety critical system and quantify their independence and interdependence. Practical guides for each of the key disciplines involved in system creation are presented, including the oft-neglected management of the overall process. Lastly, possible approaches to future technology are suggested, such as those related to autonomous vehicles.

Safety Critical Systems includes information on:

• Limits of safety systems, methods to measure safety, absolute versus relative safety, and the relationship between safety and liability
• General design considerations including complexity, self-checks, latent failures, and component failure modes
• Engineering techniques including functional segmentation, independent monitoring, and compound actuating
• Common fallacies including safety through testing, excessive maintenance as a safety measure, and the infallibility of personnel
• Managerial strategies to help engineering and safety groups thrive within an organization when the two are often at odds with one another

Safety Critical Systems provides modern safety practitioners with the knowledge they need to navigate current industry norms to assist them in analyzing systems that are well beyond what traditional techniques can easily handle.