System Safety 2011

Dr Carl Sandom, Director and Principal Consultant, iSys Integrity Ltd

Paul Caseley, DSTL

Chris Johnson, Professor of Computing Science, the University of Glasgow

Chris Johnson is Professor of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. His research develops tools and techniques to reduce the likelihood and mitigate the consequences of failures involving complex safety-critical systems.  He has held fellowships from NASA and the US Air Force and has worked on aspects of space resilience with teams from ESA and the International Space Station. He is co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board to the SESAR programme for research and development in aviation on behalf of the European Commission. He is also working with the European Railway Agency on the exchange of 'leading practices' in accident investigation between member states. He has advised both the US and UK governments on safety in national healthcare information systems. He has published more than 200 peer reviewed papers. His recent work has focused on the interactions between safety and cyber-security requirements across national critical infrastructures.

Dr Richard Piggin, Security Sector Manager, Atkins  - expert in Cyber Security

Richard has an Engineering Doctorate in Industrial Control Systems communications from the University of Warwick and has previously worked for several control system vendors in network, security and safety-related roles. He is a UK Expert to several IEC Cyber Security Working Groups involved in producing IEC 62443 covering Industrial Automation and Control Systems Security.

Jens Braband, Principal Engineer RAMSS, Siemens AG

Jens Braband has a PhD degree in Mathematics from TU Braunschweig. In 1993, Jens commenced working for Siemens AG, Business Unit Rail Automation, in various positions in research and safety, and currently as the Principal Expert for RAMSS.

Jens is accredited as an Independent Safety Assessor (ISA) by the German Federal Railway Authority (EBA) and represents the European Railway Suppliers Federation (UNIFE) as safety expert at the European Railway Agency (ERA). Jens also teaches risk and safety analysis of transportation systems as a honorary professor at TU Braunschweig.

Paul Casely, DSTL

Simon Fϋrst, Group Leader Platform Software, BMW Group

Simon Fürst studied Aerospace Engineering at the Technical University of Munich. In 1993 he started as a research assistant at the department of System Dynamics and Flight Mechanics at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich. His research area was on onboard autonomous, vision based systems for navigation and landing of airplanes and helicopters. In 2001 he started at IABG in Ottobrunn as a project leader and consultant for the qualification of the high risk avionics software in the tiger helicopter and the Eurofighter Typhoon. Since mid 2003 he is with BMW. There he is one of the authors of an internal software development standard for embedded software. From 2005 till March 2009 he was a member of the software group of the VDA NAA AA-I3 AK16 and a software expert in ISO TC22 SC3 WG16 working on ISO 26262, the functional safety standard for the automotive domain. During that time he was international project leader for some of the chapters of ISO 26262. In 2004 he started in the FlexRay Safety Working Group and in the AUTOSAR Safety Team. In 2006 Fürst became BMW Project Leader for AUTOSAR. In 2008 he switched from AUTOSAR Project Leader Team to AUTOSAR Steering Committee. From July 2009 till March 2010 he was AUTOSAR Spokesperson. Currently he is Group Leader for BMW's cross ECU software platform. This covers responsibility for BMW's activities in the AUTOSAR Partnership as well as the BMW AUTOSAR Core being applied in BMW ECUs as a software platform.

Michael Hill, Software and Safety Consultant, System Software Assurance Team, QinetiQ

Michael Holloway, Senior Research Engineer, NASA Langley Research Center

C. Michael Holloway is a senior research engineer in the Safety Critical Avionics Systems Branch at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, United States. His primary professional interests involve epistemic issues in software system safety. He received his academic training at the University of Virginia and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a member of the IEEE, the IEEE Computer Society, and the System Safety Society.

"I have attended all 6 previous IET International Systems Safety Conferences because the events provide a superb opportunity to meet leading researchers and practitioners and to have in-depth discussions about both leading edge research and day-to-day practice in systems safety."

James Inge, Head of the Ship Safety Management Office, UK Ministry of Defence.  From 23 April 12, Deputy Team Leader, Support & Logistic Vehicles Project Team, UK MOD. MoD

James Inge was head of the Ship Safety Management Office at the UK Ministry of Defence for nearly five years, before moving back to the world of equipment projects. He has a background in acquisition safety policy, including development of key MOD policy documents such as JSP 430 and DefStan 00-56. He studied Safety Critical Systems Engineering at the University of York and currently chairs the IET/BCS/SaRS Independent Safety Assurance Working Group.

"The System Safety Conference is always a good place to hear the latest safety thinking and in 2012 the opportunity to explore the link with security and the impact of cyber threats will be an added bonus."

Chris Johnson, University of Glasgow

Paul Nicholls, Software & Systems Dependability Team, DSTL

Dr Mark Nicholson, Department of Computer Science, University of York

Mervyn Oliver, Safety Manager, EUROCONTROL IANS

"The Conference is a show case for the latest safety developments in different industries. It allows delegates to broaden their understanding of future Risk Management Activities."

Colin Potter, Systems Dependability & Software Assurance Analyst, DSTL

Colin is an expert in Systems Test Engineering covering all aspects of the project lifecycle with a verification and validation basis, from requirements engineering through to deployment and subsequent disposal. His experience covers requirements management, requirements traceability, design and provision of test infrastructures (even down to the building of the platforms, implementing the networks and configuration control), determining test strategies, designing, running and reporting tests. Colin has been a Test Engineer, Test Manager and Integration Manager.

“Safety is becoming ever more important, even with military systems which have to function at the ultimate point of delivery.  When considering the functional v non-functional requirements of a product safety is something that we can’t ignore.”

Carl Sandom, iSys integrity

Peter Sheppard, Senior Safety Engineer and Validator System Safety Engineer, SSR Project, Bombardier Transportation UK Ltd

George Turnbull founder and chairman of Open Automation and Control Open Automation and Control (Group)

George joined the Eurotherm Group in 1966, originally as a research and development engineer, before founding Turnbull Control Systems as a subsidiary of Eurotherm in 1974. The company grew to be a major player in the Process Control Market (sales around £40M). He was Managing Director of TCS for five years prior to taking the position as Technical Director for the Eurotherm Group worldwide, which involved ten years in the USA.

After leaving Eurotherm in 1998 he performed a role as Director of the Open Architecture Group for the US software company Object Automation and presented papers at a wide variety of conferences, chairing many of these. He then joined Industrial Control Services PLC, a company specialising in safety shutdown systems, as Group Technical Director on the main board of the company. He was responsible for the very successful Trusted TMR Safety System.

He now has his own company - Open Automation and Control - specialising in safety critical software / systems.

"I consider the IET International Systems Safety conference as one of the most important events in the safety calendar. I have observed it improving year by year and feel privileged to have contributed in a small way to this success."

John Turton, Turton Consulting

Michael Wild, Functional Safety Specialist, MIRA Ltd

Phil Williams, Chief Safety Authority, General Dynamics