Independent Safety Assessment
An Independent Safety
Assessment or Audit is often required before a product or system can be brought
into service or enter the market. The principal aim of this activity is to show
that the evidence for the safety claim exists and is valid. Audits or
assessments take place against the safety requirements and often require
knowledge of international standards and best practise.
To make a safety claim, it
is not good enough to show that a product or system meets a particular
standard. Many standards are overtaken by the technological progress and
evolving best practise. To ensure that in the,
hopefully, unlikely event of an accident and a claim for liability being made,
then it is important that not only has there been a well documented and
structured approach to the development, deployment and maintenance activities,
but that the development activity took note of the evolving best practice and
also where necessary the ALARP principal was used to reduce the risks to a
tolerable level.
Virkonnen can either
undertake the ISA role, or can help organisations put
in place policies and practices to ensure that when an Independent Safety
Assessment is carried out, the evidence is in place to ease the task.
Virkonnen's experience covers the functional
safety standards BS EN 61508 and BS EN 61511, as well as for example Def Stan
00-55, 00-56 , RTCA 178B, RIA23, BS EN 50126, BS EN 50128 and BS EN 50129.
For more information on how
we can assist you to meet the ISA requirements, or to act as an ISA, please
give us a call.
We are members of the joint
BCS/IET/SaRs working party on ISAs (see related_sites page for link)
We support the IET/BCS/SaRs ISA WG Code of Practice for ISAs
20 October 2012