Software system reliability and safety assessment: an extended FMEA approach

Sinda Rebello and Neeraj Kumar Goyal

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2010, vol. 4, issue 4, 366-380

Abstract: This paper presents a methodology for assessing the reliability and safety of a software based on an extended Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) approach. The methodology is described in steps with illustrative examples. The analysis starts from initial phase of the software development and evolves during the subsequent phases of software development providing valuable information to each phases. Finally, the analysis yields a quantitative assessment of reliability and safety of the software system. The paper's main objective is to support Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) in assessing risk. Risk is a function of severity and failure frequency/probability. The severity is characteristic of failure effects. Failures may be analysed as functional or component failure. In this paper, it is proposed to consider severity levels at functional failure level as it is easier to understand failure effects at functional level. Moreover, various logical combinations of different functional failures can also be formed and analysed using the proposed approach.

Keywords: software FMEA; software FTA; software reliability; software safety; minimal cut set; failure mode and effects analysis; software development; risk assessment; probabilistic safety assessment; PSA; fault tree analysis. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=35575 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijrsaf:v:4:y:2010:i:4:p:366-380

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Reliability and Safety from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().