The 7th conference on System & Software Safety was held on October 22-23 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the result from a successful collaboration between Addalot , KTH and ICES that led to a very appreciated conference where experts and participants from Industry and University met in Stockholm to discuss techniques and methods for developing complex and safety regulated software and systems. Participants from industry, university and consultant organizations participated in this year’s conference. This year we even attracted participants from Israel and Turkey!
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 want to gather stakeholders for discussions and to create an inspiring environment for exchanging ideas and knowledge.
“The distribution between industry and academia is well balanced and help to inspire and network, which is the purpose of the conference” says Nicolás Martín-Vivaldi, CEO at Addalot.
At this year´s conference we were happy to welcome two key note presentations on exciting topics:
- System Lifecycle Operational Governance, Nick McDonald, Trinity College Dublin
- System safety principles from 1999; challenges for 2019?, Dr David Pumfrey, University of York
In addition to the two keynotes there were a set of short presentations from various speakers. Below is a list of the different topics that were covered:
- Safety cage: an approach for safe machine learning systems
- The challenges for today’s functional safety engineer – A view based on railway, automotive and machinery industry
- Conflict as Software Levels Diversify
- Safety management – practice and compliance in safety critical product development and service production
- Virtual Verification for Autonomous Vehicles – focusing on safety
Day two consisted of five half day workshops, where different areas where discussed in more depth.
- Workshop: Design of dependable systems – fundamentals of Aircraft safety, Kristina Forsberg and Håkan Forsberg. Here Kristina and Håkan had analyzed the recent Boeing 737 Max 8 accidents. It became a very interesting workshop with a lot of interaction on this sad but interesting topic.
- Tutorial/Workshop ISO 26262 – overview and challenges – Even-André Karlsson, Addalot. An overview of 26262 with a lot of discussion on difficult items. The workshop gave a good overview for newcomers at the same time as more experience participants could discuss interesting topics. We had a good spread of participants, e.g. HW processor developers, complier developers, tool de
- Workshop: System safety principles from 1999; challenges for 2019? David Pumfrey and Martin Törngren. Here the participants could go into more detailed on the system safety principles presented at the first keynote. The discussion and exchange of experiences was lively, and many got new insight and perspective that they could bring home.
- Presentations: In-depth presentations. The workshop ”in-depth presentations” was an afternoon of engaging presentations with more room for interaction than in a plenary session. One participant especially enjoyed the case study presented by Stephan Baumgart from Volvo CE, it was a very clarifying example of a Hazard analysis where several autonomous vehicles interact with humans and human controlled vehicles in a closed environment. The takeaway was that it is quite complicated to take all the hazards into consideration even in a controlled environment.
- Tutorial/Workshop: ASPICE– overview and challenges, Even-André Karlsson. Here we had he chance to go through the ASPICE standard, and also compare that to ISO 26262, We also looked at feedback from a real ASPICE level 2 assessment, and we could discuss what was really needed to reach ASPICE level 2. The real level of rigor and documentation required to achieve this gave the participant some food for thought.
The complete program with all presentations can be found on our website.
Feedback from the participants
The majority of the ones that handed in the conference evaluation were positive or very positive to this year’s conference. This year’s program got an average of 4 of 5 possible in the conference evaluation, which we think is a good evidence on that there is a strong need and wish for this conference to take place. Many also replied back that they would most certainly participate again next year.
The different presentations during day 1 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 especially like to thank the Program Committee that is helping out to make this conference a success” concludes Even-André Karlsson, Addalot and Conference Chair
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 strong keynotes from power industry, academia and automotive sector – illustrating the importance of learning across domains and areas needing more attention. There is strong motivation to continue this conference series.
Addalot