Software development to support safety evidence collection and management process

Abstract

Safety-Critical Systems (SCS) are becoming more present in the daily lives of contemporary society. Today's SCS are heavily based on computational technology, in which eventual failures in the functioning of these systems can cause accidents and put human life at risk or cause damage to the environment and property. Companies that develop SCS need to present evidence that demonstrates compliance with the requirements to obtain certification and authorization for the commercialization of their systems. During SCS development, collecting, storing, and managing the generated evidence necessary to meet requirements is essential because recreating evidence after the fact is a laborious and time-consuming activity. This research project aims to model processes and a software tool that can be integrated into the SCS development lifecycle to support this process until the certification. The research methodology for conducting this work involved performing a systematic literature review, modeling processes intrinsic to the SCS development with experts on the subject, developing a safety evidence management software, and validating it from a survey with experienced professionals in the area. The systematic literature review was conducted to identify involved actors that work in SCS processes and to identify how safety evidence management is addressed in the literature and existing support systems and opportunities for this work. The supporting software was developed based on a service-oriented architecture allowing integration with other systems and databases of a company. Each layer was implemented with specific technologies, such as Slim Framework (back-end), React JS (front-end), MySQL (database), Google Cloud Platform (infrastructure). The validation survey was answered by 12 volunteer participants experienced in the subject of this work, by following the tutorial and usage script to validate the solution, which contained steps to operate the system. The survey results indicate that the use of a support tool for safety evidence management process in companies from different domains can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of teams that develop SCS, facilitating the search and storage of information, allowing evidence review, and collaborating to increase the quality of the final product (SCS) and the certification process. The survey results also indicate the need to review the usability of the developed tool to make its use more intuitive and simpler.