 |
Whenever a member state decides to implement a concept or system that EUROCONTROL has helped to develop, some of the initial research, testing and thinking will carry over into the real world. Therefore, EEC projects can have an impact on safety. Consequently, EEC (EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre) projects have the responsibility to evaluate their potential safety impact, and should improve safety where possible, and at least should record safety issues and insights for future potential implementation.
|
|
|
Applying Safety to EEC Projects |
EATM (European Air Traffic Management Programme) projects are required to comply with the EATM Safety Assessment Methodology (SAM), which was asked for by our internal regulators (SRU), and has been developed by the SQS (Safety, Quality and Standards) unit in EUROCONTROL headquarters. The SAM, already well under development, is in fact already being implemented on a number of EEC-based projects. The SAM approach is fairly intensive, requiring major assessments during the design phase. This is reasonable for projects that aim to produce a substantially developed deliverable, but might indeed be unnecessary for EEC projects that have not progressed up to EATM 'development' phase per EATM life-cycle.
|
|
|
The SAND project aims to develop a safety assessment methodology compatible with the full range of EEC projects. SAND aims to provide an approach that will be flexible and adjustable for different project needs, using an appropriate level of resources.
|
|
|
The SAND approach needs to encompass at least the following:
|
- Initial assessment of potential safety impact - to decide the level of assessment that may be needed for individual projects.
- Development of a Safety Plan for the project - to plan when any risk assessment or other safety-related analyses might occur, and to allocate resources.
- An appropriate level of risk assessment (qualitative) Note: this risk assessment approach will propose tools that are adapted to EEC projects. Depending on the phase of the project, tools other than the ones described in SAM (such as FHA - Functional Hazard Assessment) could be used alone or in complement to SAM. Two of these tools are being assessed at the moment : HAZOP (Hazard and Operability) and TRACER (Technique for the Retrospective and Predictive Analysis of Cognitive Errors).
- A safety issues recording and monitoring system ; to create and retain a living document, a 'memory' of all safety considerations throughout the EEC project, which can then be transmitted to any further developers or interested parties.
- A safety summary document - this would evaluate and conclude on safety issues related to the project - it would not be a safety case as such, but could contribute towards a safety case if the project was to produce a prototype system, for example. It would inform any further developers or interested parties on the safety issues found, their potential impact, and possible solutions, etc.
|
|
|
|
The SAND options for 2004 are used to apply SAND to produce the safety deliverables of the SEAP project (refer to SEAP budget) with a link to the standardisation of ADS-B supported services. Corresponding resources for SAND options will be re-allocated to complete the safety assessment process (SAFLEARN).
Current priorities are focused on:
- the production of training material and guidelines for project managers;
- the continuation of support to EEC projects already supported in 2003;
- the production of SEAP safety deliverables that are the first step to the establishment of standards for ADS-B supported applications (link with Requirements Focus Group);
|
|
|
Although human errors are often invoked as primary cause of accident, the majority (60 %) of accidents in aviation have their roots in design. Whenever a member state decides to implement a concept or system that EUROCONTROL has helped to develop, some of the initial research, testing and thinking will carry over into the real world. Therefore, EEC projects can have an impact on safety. Consequently, EEC projects have the responsibility to evaluate their potential safety impact, and should improve safety where possible, and at least should record safety issues and insights for future potential implementation.
|
|
|
The SAND project aims at:
- Defining objectives for the safety assessment of EEC projects according to EATM life-cycles definitions and activities covered by related projects or standardisation groups.
- Identifying EEC projects being candidates to safety assessment.
- Providing 'hands-on' guidelines and assistance to apply safety assessment on EEC projects.
- Providing safety plan and initial safety assessment for some 'representative' EEC projects.
- Maintaining hazard logs database and evaluating hazard log tools.
- Providing Safety Summary for studied projects.
|
|
|
EUROCONTROL EHQ has initiated the development of a safety Methodology named SAM (Safety Assessment Methodology). This methodology provides guidance for the assessment of ATM system safety for EUROCONTROL projects. Since EEC projects do not always progress up to EATM development phase, SAM requires some adaptations to be adjusted to the different EEC projects' needs. For this reason, EEC has started the development of SAND (Safety Assurance for New Designs) that intends to adapt SAM to the different EEC projects' needs. SAND activities will be co-ordinated for methodology aspects with EUROCONTROL HQ and will implement one building block of EEC Strategic Safety Plan. SAND does not aim to develop yet another method but intends to help and assist projects to apply safety assessment to their needs. SAND will be complemented by basic safety training.
|
|
|
PLAN:
- definition of objectives for safety assessement on 3 EEC projects.
- preliminary safety assessent for 3 EEC projects.
|
|
|
DO:
- develop guidelines on how to perform safety assessment for various types of EEC projects.
|
|
|
STUDY:
- integrate safety operational feedback, continuously monitor new methods' development and EEC projects needs.
|
|
|
'ACT':
- assist and review safety assessment on all EEC projects and measure progress of 'safety culture' in EEC.
|
|
|
For more information, contact:
|
Catherine
Gandolfi
|
|
SAND Project Manager
|
| Email:
|
|
|
