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Survey on Safety Evidence Change Impact Analysis in Practice: Detailed Description and Analysis

de la Vara, José Luis ; Borg, Markus LU ; Wnuk, Krzysztof LU and Moonen, Leon (2014)
Abstract
Critical systems must comply with safety standards in many application

domains. This involves gathering safety evidence in the form of artefacts such

as safety analyses, system specifications, and testing results. These artefacts

can evolve during a system’s lifecycle, and impact analysis might be

necessary to guarantee that system safety and compliance are not jeopardised.

Although extensive research has been conducted on impact analysis and on

safety evidence management, the knowledge about how safety evidence

change impact analysis is addressed in practice is limited. This technical

report presents a survey targeted at filling this gap by analysing the

... (More)
Critical systems must comply with safety standards in many application

domains. This involves gathering safety evidence in the form of artefacts such

as safety analyses, system specifications, and testing results. These artefacts

can evolve during a system’s lifecycle, and impact analysis might be

necessary to guarantee that system safety and compliance are not jeopardised.

Although extensive research has been conducted on impact analysis and on

safety evidence management, the knowledge about how safety evidence

change impact analysis is addressed in practice is limited. This technical

report presents a survey targeted at filling this gap by analysing the

circumstances under which safety evidence change impact analysis is

addressed, the tool support used, and the challenges faced. We obtained 97

valid responses representing 16 application domains, 28 countries, and 47

safety standards. The results suggest that most projects deal with safety

evidence change impact analysis during system development and mainly from

system specifications, the level of automation in the process is low, and

insufficient tool support is the most frequent challenge. Other notable findings

are that safety case evolution should probably be better managed, no

commercial impact analysis tool has been reported as used for all artefact

types, and experience and automation do not seem to greatly help in avoiding

challenges. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Book/Report
publication status
published
subject
keywords
safety assurance, safety certification., change management, impact analysis, safety evidence, safety-critical system
publisher
Simula Research Laboratory
project
Embedded Applications Software Engineering
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
f7c743c0-483e-4203-b666-9ccccde5a0a6 (old id 5104504)
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 11:24:47
date last changed
2021-04-29 09:44:21
@techreport{f7c743c0-483e-4203-b666-9ccccde5a0a6,
  abstract     = {{Critical systems must comply with safety standards in many application<br/><br>
domains. This involves gathering safety evidence in the form of artefacts such<br/><br>
as safety analyses, system specifications, and testing results. These artefacts<br/><br>
can evolve during a system’s lifecycle, and impact analysis might be<br/><br>
necessary to guarantee that system safety and compliance are not jeopardised.<br/><br>
Although extensive research has been conducted on impact analysis and on<br/><br>
safety evidence management, the knowledge about how safety evidence<br/><br>
change impact analysis is addressed in practice is limited. This technical<br/><br>
report presents a survey targeted at filling this gap by analysing the<br/><br>
circumstances under which safety evidence change impact analysis is<br/><br>
addressed, the tool support used, and the challenges faced. We obtained 97<br/><br>
valid responses representing 16 application domains, 28 countries, and 47<br/><br>
safety standards. The results suggest that most projects deal with safety<br/><br>
evidence change impact analysis during system development and mainly from<br/><br>
system specifications, the level of automation in the process is low, and<br/><br>
insufficient tool support is the most frequent challenge. Other notable findings<br/><br>
are that safety case evolution should probably be better managed, no<br/><br>
commercial impact analysis tool has been reported as used for all artefact<br/><br>
types, and experience and automation do not seem to greatly help in avoiding<br/><br>
challenges.}},
  author       = {{de la Vara, José Luis and Borg, Markus and Wnuk, Krzysztof and Moonen, Leon}},
  institution  = {{Simula Research Laboratory}},
  keywords     = {{safety assurance; safety certification.; change management; impact analysis; safety evidence; safety-critical system}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  title        = {{Survey on Safety Evidence Change Impact Analysis in Practice: Detailed Description and Analysis}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/5767846/5104509.pdf}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}