Software and System Safety

Book excerpt: System safety is a widely accepted management and engineering approach to analyze and address risks in complex systems in order to prevent accidents. Because software and computing systems are integral to most systems, software safety has become a critical component of an overall system safety effort. Software and System Safety discusses critical elements of the discipline of system safety and shows how software and computing systems fit in the system safety process. Software-specific aspects of the system safety process are addressed to show concerns common to complex systems. The many accidents and incidents presented in this book illustrate important lessons learned and show how software-related hazards can be misidentified, software risks can be improperly assessed, hazard controls may be misapplied, and software and system testing may not effectively verify that the risk had been reduced. The lessons learned come from a variety of industries and organizations, and include the author’s personal experience. The real-world lessons provided in this book can be used to improve existing software safety and system safety efforts, and can help when planning new system safety programs.