When:
March 29, 2007 at 6:45 PMWhere:
BCIT Burnaby Campus. Townsquare D in building SE2What:
Ken Wong
Senior Systems Analyst
"Software Safety: An Oxymoron?"
Abstract
It is a well-known maxim that complexity is an essential property of software. In spite of that, software-implemented functionality has increased dramatically in almost all safety-critical sectors. This increasing reliance on software provides great challenges to traditional practice of system safety, which focuses on the management of system hazards in order to mitigate safety risk. Software safety has emerged as sub-discipline of system safety to help address these challenges. However, the marriage of software and system safety has been an uneasy one. This talk discusses some of the issues that arise when software meets safety. Why safety is a distinct property from quality, reliablity and other ilities will be addressed. The impact of software on system safety will be discussed. Finally, the need for safety verification of software-intensive systems will be briefly touched upon.
About Ken Wong
Ken Wong is currently a Senior Systems Analyst with McKesson Medical Imaging Group and has been involved in the specification and UI design of Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) and Radiology Information systems (RIS). Previously, he was a Senior Systems Engineer with Raytheon Canada Limited and participated in the development of the Canadian Automated Air Traffic System (CAATS), TracView and the NATO Air Command And Control System (ACCS). He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2005.Past Meetings
