High Level Organisation of Safety Arguments
Iain Bate, Simon Bates and John McDermid
The work presented in this paper has been conducted as part of the BAE Systems funded Dependable Computing Systems Centre (DCSC). In this paper we build on previous Safety Case Architecture (SCA) work and introduce a technique called Imaginative Anticipation and two quality characteristics to aid the development of a SCA. SCAs are used, in this paper, to facilitate the high level organisation of the safety case into argument modules. A safety case presents a reasoned argument that uses identified evidence to justify the safety of a particular system in a particular context. Therefore, the arrangement into argument modules is conducted to develop modular safety cases. In this paper we discuss reasons for why a modular safety case would be developed and how a SCA can be used to support the development. A process is introduced for creating SCAs. The process consists of four iterative phases: Knowledge gathering, proposition of SCAs, evaluation of proposed SCAs, and, selection of the most appropriate SCA. The four phases are discussed and the process is demonstrated through small example.
BibTex Entry
@inproceedings{Bate2004c,
author = {Iain Bate and Simon Bates and John McDermid},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 22nd International System Safety Conference},
pages = {675--684},
title = {High Level Organisation of Safety Arguments},
year = {2004}
}