The 5th conference on System & Software Safety was held in May 2017 in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the result of a succesful collaboration between Addalot , KTH and ICES that led to a very appreciated conference where experts and participants from Industry and University met to discuss techniques and methods for developing complex and safety regulated software and systems. More than 100 participants from industry, university and consultancy companies participated in this year’s conference.
A lot of interesting research and development is currently ongoing in this field in order to create methods for process improvements, assessments and standardization of safety critical software and systems. With this conference, Addalot wants to gather stakeholders for discussions and to create an inspiring environment for exchanging ideas and knowledge.
“Considering the purpose of the conference, to inspire and network, we are very pleased. Next year we plan to further develop the workshop set up” says Nicolás Martín-Vivaldi, CEO at Addalot.
This year there were two keynotes taking place, Engineering Safety and Security in the era of the Industrial Internet of Things, Dr Robert Oates and “Safety of digital health technologies”, Prof. Farah Magrabi, Macquarie University, Austrailia. Two very interesting and appreciated presentations.
The conference took place over two days and the first day consisted of the two Keynotes and a set of short presentations from various speakers. Below follows a list of different topics that were covered:
- Resilience
- Documenting the architecture
- Safety plans
- Requirements specification for safety critical systems
- FMV handbook on Safety Critical Software
- Safety Analysis and Software Architecture Assessment
- Autonomous systems
The second day consisted of six workshops and there the different areas were discussed in more depth. The complete program with all presentations can be found on the conference web site. This year’s program got an average of 4 of 5 possible in the conference evaluation which we think is a good evidence that there is a strong need and wish for this conference to take place.
Feedback from the participants
The majority of those who handed in the conference evalutation were positive or very positive to this year’s conference. Over 90% of the respondents thought that the conference program to a large extent covered and addressed their challenges and interest related to safety critical systems and software. Many replied that they would most certainly participate again next year:
The different presentations during the first day got the following feedback, averaged and sorted after grading. The scale is from 1 to 5 where 1 is poor and 5 is excellent.
“This conference is a great opportunity to bring together researchers, industry and consultants from many fields working with safety systems, and we would specially like to thank the Program Committee which is helping to make this conference a success” concludes Even-André Karlsson, Addalot and Conference Chairman
Martin Törngren, professor and co-organizer from KTH, says ”From KTH / ICES we see the conference as a great success. The conference plays an important role as a cross-industry and discipline meeting place, bringing together experts with different perspectives on safety. This was well manifested this year with keynotes from aerospace on Safety and Security, and from Health-care on IT systems – illustrating the importance of learning across domains and areas needing more attention. There is strong motivation to continue this conference series.”
