Integrity levels and assessment levels in practice

Addresses the problems associated with the practical aspects of developing and assessing software used in safety related and safety critical applications. Many of these problems are common to other applications where high quality software is required. The authors consider the problems which are specific to safety critical applications. Nevertheless, many of the methods and techniques proposed are equally applicable to nonsafety related applications. An essential first step is the recognition that safety criticality is a continuous quantity and that a determination is required of how safety critical the software is. In this paper the authors describe and justify their approach to the selection of a level at which to assess software used in safety critical applications. This approach is based on current research and opinion and is closely related to the position taken by the IEC