Skip to main content

Compliance and Rigour in Process Assessment for Safety-Critical Domain

  • Conference paper
Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement (EuroSPI 2014)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 425))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Safety-critical systems are increasingly affecting our lives and welfare. New approaches are being developed to evaluate the abilities related to development of these systems. Process assessment can be applied to increase our trust in safety related systems development. Importance of meeting the requirements of existing safety standards and regulations has increased, but also the quality of the process assessments needs to be ensured. Important features include assessment rigour, and compliance to standards and regulatory requirements. In this paper we discuss the challenges in process assessment with highest safety-criticality and present an approach to manage the assessments by a classification of relevant assessment types. The outcome is evaluated with a domain specific example. We conclude that process assessment has significant limitations in its capability to verify safety requirements, and especially regulatory requirements. On the other hand, process assessments are applicable to certain purposes, like supplier selection, and they can be developed to include a wider coverage of evidence important to the safety-critical domain.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. ISO/IEC 12207:2008, Software Life Cycle processes (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  2. +SAFE, V1.2, A Safety Extension to CMMI-DEV, V1.2. CMU/SEI-2007-TN-006 (March 2007)

    Google Scholar 

  3. ISO/IEC 15504-5:2012, Information technology – Process assessment – Part 5: An exemplar Process Assessment Model (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  4. IEC 61508-3 Ed. 2.0, Functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems – Part 3: Software requirements (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  5. IEC 61513 FDIS, Nuclear power plants – Instrumentation and control for systems important to safety – General requirements for system (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  6. IEC 60880, Nuclear power plants – Instrumentation and control systems important to safety – Software aspects for computer-based systems performing category A functions (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  7. IEC 62138, Nuclear Power Plants – I&C Systems Important to Safety – Software Aspects for Computer Based Systems Performing Category B and C Functions (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  8. STUK: New YVL guides, https://ohjeisto.stuk.fi/YVL/?en=on (accessed April 12, 2014)

  9. Common Position revision 2013. Licensing of safety critical software for nuclear reactors. Common position of seven European nuclear regulators and authorised technical support organisations (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  10. ISO/IEC 33002, Information technology – Process assessment – Part 2: Performing an Assessment (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  11. ISO/IEC 33001, Information technology – Process assessment – Concepts and terminology (2014)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Varkoi, T., Nevalainen, R. (2014). Compliance and Rigour in Process Assessment for Safety-Critical Domain. In: Barafort, B., O’Connor, R.V., Poth, A., Messnarz, R. (eds) Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement. EuroSPI 2014. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 425. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43896-1_27

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43896-1_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-43895-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-43896-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics