Integrated Techniques for Software Safety Analysis

Introduction We believe that existing techniques only address parts of the problem of assessing the safety of the software components of safety-critical systems. It is our belief that the main shortcomings of these existing techniques lie in their poor integration with each other and with the rest of the development process. We have identified three main areas where improved integration is necessary — semantic, procedural and operational integration. This paper describes what we mean by each of these terms, and describes our work on the development of notations, methods and tools for safety analysis within the framework of the SSAP (Software Safety Assessment Procedures) project. We also address the broader context of safety analysis and describe links between SSAP and other relevant work.