Our tool offers a range of services targeted at improving the reliability, dependability and safety of your software. Whether your software is safety-critical, mission-critical, or expected to satisfy strict reliability and availability requirements to be certified as market-ready, we can lead and support your effort in attaining these goals.
Software FTA
It is very important to include software in a system Fault Tree Analysis or quantitative hazard analysis, especially for software-intensive systems. Software does not only fail, it is often used to mitigate hardware failures. A system analysis would be incomplete without evaluation of all major software elements and interfaces between software and hardware.
To perform a complete software FTA our engineers will work with your program to obtain all the required information including:
- System architecture
- System requirements document
- Preliminary/functional hazard analysis
- Hardware failure reports
- Human error evaluation
Software Requirement Analysis for Safety
Requirements V&V
Software faults that lead to failures differ from hardware as they are not random or the result of wear out. They are embedded into the code either through coding errors or because of errors/omissions/ambiguities in software requirements. In safety-critical software, which is rigorously tested, faults are mostly due to requirement issues, and much less frequent due to coding errors. Therefore, V&V of software requirements is at least as crucial as V&V for hardware, if not more so.
In order to perform a requirements, review that can focus on safety-aspects of the code our tool uses the following design products:
- System architecture
- Complete system requirements documents
- System hazard analysis and/or Fault Tree Analysis
Software FMEA
If your system is safety critical, and your hardware is getting the FMEA treatment, you have better treat your software as not less critical. As in the case of hardware, a software FMEA is an incredibly valuable addition to the organizational knowledge base. Every additional program FMEA will reduce future FMEA efforts and will also provide the basis for safer and more cost-effective design and coding in the future. As in hardware, the software FMEA shows:
- Critical failure effects
- Failure modes leading to these effects
- Where additional protection is required