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You are here: Home » Case Studies » Deciding whether components are sufficiently safe to use in critical systems
Deciding whether components are sufficiently safe to use in critical systems
Problem
- In industries like nuclear and transport any new
component that is added to an existing system must satisfy rigorous
safety requirements
- In the rail industry the choice of alternative components
(from different suppliers) is influenced by a combination of safety,
reliability and cost
- Hence the suitability of any potential new component must be assessed on its likely impact on overall safety
- A major rail company needed to be able to make an
auditable judgement about the overall safety of each potential new
component or system. The judgement had to take account of a combination
of information such as known reliability data, independent testing
data, and expert judgement about the design quality, complexity and
manufacturer capability
Solution
- A hierarchical risk map was developed in AgenaRisk that took account of the full range of objective and subjective data
- Safety predictions were characterized in terms of expected whole-life losses
Benefits
- AgenaRisk provides a rigorous, auditable prediction of the
component's safety in terms of whole-life losses and hence provides a
clear basis for making the decision about whether or not to adopt the
component
- AgenaRisk enables extensive "what-if?" and other types of
sensitivity analysis to enable users to identify the impact of various
changes to the component and changes to any assumptions
- AgenaRisk identifies the causes of poor safety
- Enables users to update their predictions when new information (such as testing data) becomes available
