Safety Engineering – Aerospace

We have a wide range of experience of safety engineering in the aerospace industry including:

• Tactical Unmanned Aerial Reconnaissance
• Weapons Safety

Tactical Unmanned Aerial Reconnaissance

We are providing safety support for the development of the Ministry of Defence WATCHKEEPER requirement. WATCHKEEPER will use unmanned air vehicles to provide reconnaissance data to UK ground forces in combat situations.
We are providing a complete safety engineering solution for the WATCHKEEPER system.

Our activities include:

• planning the safety programme
• developing the safety argument
• performing system and software safety analysis
• setting safety requirements – including integrity targets
• reviewing subcontractor processes
• providing advice and support to subcontractors
• gathering safety evidence and assessing compliance
• compiling a safety case

At the System Integration Assessment Phase of the programme, we have demonstrated that the proposed solutions can meet the MoD's stringent requirements for the safety of the system.

We continue to work with our clients to ensure that the system delivered will meet the safety targets in the most cost-effective way.

Our safety analysis incorporates techniques such as hazard identification, functional analysis, zonal analysis, operating and support hazard analysis and occupational health hazard analysis, among others. Our approach ensures that these techniques are used appropriately to ensure that the risks associated with the system are reduced to an acceptable level.

Our approach takes into account the applicable existing and emerging Unmanned Air Vehicle specific standards, including CAP 722, Defence Standards 00-970 (Part 9), 00-56 and 00-55 and JSP 454 and JSP 553. We apply these standards intelligently, resulting in a solution that fits the problem at the minimum cost consistent with delivering safety.

We document the results of our analysis using our eSafetyCase technology, which combines accessibility with flexibility. The complete suite of evidence is delivered in a manageable electronic form; allowing easy navigation through the evidence plus the ability to print selected documents as required.

The safety argument is presented hierarchically, with links to drill down to appropriate detailed supporting evidence. For more information on the benefits of eSafetyCase please refer to the web site.



Weapons safety

We are developing safety cases and guided weapon releases, and providing a safety assessment service for a number of weapon systems.

We have the capability to undertake safety work in accordance with Ministry of Defence Requirements JSP520 in addition to other NATO and friendly countries requirements.

For example, we have developed legacy safety cases for over 80 items of Air Launched Munitions and associated equipment for the Ministry of Defence, Defence Logistic Organisations following a competitive tendering process.

The essential requirements for this work were:

• The introduction of safety cases was mandated to take place within a short timeframe.
• The need to use a wider resource base than available with the MoD.
• The need to provide repeatable, auditable and maintainable safety cases.
• The production of safety cases needed to be efficient and cost effective.

A key element of our work was the use of eSafetyCase to document the safety cases, and the critical features of the technology that met the requirements for producing these weapon safety cases were:

• The provision of multiple certification views, to JSP520 and Defence Standard 00-56.
• The approach handled multiple equipment variants and modification standards.
• Information management techniques were used to ensure efficiency.
• The project met a challenging timescale.