Success Stories

Some of Adelard's successes are summarised below.

The Bowman project?to re-equip the UK Army with a modern communications system?is a huge "system of systems" incorporating many off-the-shelf components. How can the safety assessment of Bowman be carried out on such a complex system?

We conducted research to estimate the reliability of key off-the-shelf components such as Windows 2000. We promoted safety argument structures for each tier of the system of systems, which fit together to form an overall safety justification. We developed safety targets for difficult areas such as wartime risks. We developed review templates using ASCE to enable us to produce consistent assessments of the large volume of safety material.

How to develop a nuclear assay system in accordance with international safety standards, including estimating the reliability through a statistical test programme.

We developed an interpretation for an assay system of the applicable standards. We developed an end-to-end test programme based on the underlying nuclear physics, and audited the software development using an independent team.

The control system for the Rotterdam Storm Surge barrier had to be shown correct to higher confidence than could be shown by testing alone.

We modelled the control system mathematically and proved it correct.

The safety case for the RAF's Air Command and Control System was deadlocked over applicable safety targets.

We derived defensible safety targets by modelling the likelihood of mid-air collisions involving military aircraft, and validated the model using near miss data from the UK and America.