“Risk! who needs it? – use ISAE ”
The Integrated Safety
Assurance Environment system provides a fully integrated environment for effective recording,
assessment and management of safety activities and resultant documents. Records
thus captured and maintained provide evidence of a systematic approach to safety
and compliance with current best practice while making a valuable contribution
to a Safety Case for the product, process or the Undertaking concerned.
ISAE is
a data warehouse and
modelling tool aimed at the analyst following the seven-stage risk modelling
technique. The seven-stage risk modelling technique is a methodology
that
has identified seven steps of analysis required in the analysis of any scenario.
It has been applied to the Rail industry in the UK and Europe and has proven
a good tool in organising the mass of input into such a project and
also focusing the risk analysts into a common goal in a unified manner.
The seven stages are
The modelling
technique is based in common sense; from examining the steps to reveal a line
of processing involved in gathering all the information about the Hazards within
a scenario. Then after sorting and grouping it, modelling and congregating the
base Hazard events together into critical events. These can then be further modelled
to show how steps are taken to deal with these events and the consequences that
can occur. Next these consequences can be brought together into common groups
and a cost factor added. A report can be generated to show which elements of
the model contributed to a particular failure.
Now that the
scenario has been modelled the user can apply what-if probabilities at the model
and evaluate the results immediately using the scenario emulator.
The real strength
of ISAE is
the generic manner that analyst must universally enter data and almost unwittingly
allocate classification codes which provide great hindsight in the later analysis
of the model.
Briefly, the Integrated
Systems Assurance Environment will assist your development of risk models by
organising the input, ensuring that all details captured are recorded, and allows
the analysis of models using graphical worksheets. Once the models are complete,
ISAE can
then generate a mathematical model and allow scenarios to be run to help you
assess where the influence of factors on your model.
Whilst ISAE
is a good analysis tool, and must not be the
basis on which life and death situations be based, it does provide an insight
into your model, and direct you where to perform further studies and analysis.
You should treat it as another utility wrench in your toolbox!