A safety argument manager

The ASAM project (`A Safety Argument Manager´, IED4/1/1789) has developed a series of prototypes of a computer-based tool to support the construction and review of safety arguments (or safety cases), with the goal of increasing safety by reducing the likelihood of arguments being incomplete, inconsistent, or erroneous. These prototypes are being evaluated using examples of safety analysis from the fields of air traffic control and avionics. ASAM is a three-year collaborative project involving Logica, the University of York and the Civil Aviation Authority, part-funded by the Information Engineering Directorate of the Department of Trade and Industry. The author considers the approaches used in ASAM to: clarify the detailed structure of informal content, make the use of formal content as accessible as possible, and provide an appropriate large-scale structure for the safety argument