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Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 106 - La Jolla - October 2010
Agenda Location	5 SUBCOMMITTEE C – AVIONICS AND SYSTEM INTEGRATION 5.1 Safety in Complex Systems
Title	Safety in Complex Systems
Presenter	Amy Pritchett
Affiliation	Georgia Tech
Available Downloads*	presentation paper
	Downloads are available to members who are logged in and either Active* or attended this meeting.
Abstract	This presentation will discuss safety in complex (aviation) systems. Aviation accidents are often catastrophic – that is, their costs (especially including loss of life) can far exceed the value of the functioning system. A negative view of safety is as a limit on ‘production’ – in this case, limiting new aviation operations in the name of safety. Viewed positively, ‘safety’ is the mitigation or elimination of risks; correspondingly this presentation examines how risk mitigation can be distributed across technology, operational concepts and procedures, and effective human performance. Historically, effective human performance has nearly synonymous with safety, especially given the significant role aviation confers on individual’s expertise. As aviation systems become more automated and proceduralized, effective human performance will remain critical, but the focus may shift from being principally on individual performance to the combined system performance of human-machine interaction and dispersed teams. The ‘system safety perspective’ examined by this presentation, then, will focus on identifying the set of aspects or components of a system relevant to safety. We start with considering the sometimes-fuzzy definition of boundary between system and boundary, given their synergy and interaction. We will then discuss methods examining safety issues within systems, especially those of increasing complexity. We will additionally discuss how human performance can improve safety when properly supported within the system. Throughout, design of an airborne collision avoidance system will be used as a running example, building up to a summary of the most important considerations in applying a ‘system safety perspective.’