DocumentCode :
1446449
Title :
A strategy for improving safety related software engineering standards
Author :
Fenton, Norman E. ; Neil, Martin
Author_Institution :
Centre for Software Reliability, City Univ., London, UK
Volume :
24
Issue :
11
fYear :
1998
fDate :
11/1/1998 12:00:00 AM
Firstpage :
1002
Lastpage :
1013
Abstract :
There are many standards which are relevant for building safety- or mission-critical software systems. An effective standard is one that should help developers, assessors and users of such systems. For developers, the standard should help them build the system cost-effectively, and it should be clear what is required in order to conform to the standard. For assessors, it should be possible to objectively determine compliance to the standard. Users, and society at large, should have some assurance that a system developed to the standard has quantified risks and benefits. Unfortunately, the existing standards do not adequately fulfil any of these varied requirements. We explain why standards are the way they are, and then provide a strategy for improving them. Our approach is to evaluate standards on a number of key criteria that enable us to interpret the standard, identify its scope and check the ease with which it can be applied and checked. We also need to demonstrate that the use of a standard is likely either to deliver reliable and safe systems at an acceptable cost or to help predict reliability and safety accurately. Throughout the paper, we examine, by way of example, a specific standard for safety-critical systems (namely IEC 1508) and show how it can be improved by applying our strategy
Keywords :
IEC standards; cost-benefit analysis; safety-critical software; software standards; IEC 1508; checking; cost; cost-effective system development; key criteria; mission-critical software systems; quantified benefits; quantified risks; safety measurement; safety prediction; safety-critical software systems; safety-related software engineering standards; standard compliance; standards improvement strategy; system assessors; system users; systems reliability; Best practices; Computer Society; IEC standards; Mission critical systems; Software engineering; Software quality; Software safety; Software standards; Software systems; Standards development;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
0098-5589
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/32.730547
Filename :
730547
Link To Document :
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