A Framework for Generating Integrated Component Fault Trees from Architectural Views

Abstract

Safety is a property of a system which can only be assessed by conducting analysis which reveals how interacting components create situations that are unsafe because components that individually fulfill their requirements do not ensure safety at the system level. CFTs(Component Fault Trees) [1] which are specialized fault trees have been used as models to analyze systems. Systems today are typically built by groups of people who expertise in different disciplines. One of the problems of the current state of art is that there is no structured way of combining information obtained from experts in various disciplines who have different views of a system into a CFT. We provide a framework using which one can semi-automatically combine CFTs created by several stakeholders/experts into a single integrated CFT. This enables one to effectively combine experience and wisdom of experts obtained from diverse perspectives of the system into a single, more complete CFT. The resulting integrated CFT(which we call iCFT) allows safety engineers or other stakeholders to see the influences that components have on one another in a manner that would not have been revealed unless a system was viewed from varied perspectives.