Articles

Guest Post by Paul Kostek (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Frequently in my work as a systems engineer I’m faced with producing several artifacts for a project, typically a system architecture, model(s), requirements, safety analysis and risk analysis (management plan).

The challenge is many of these are treated as serial activities, items to be completed but not necessarily tied together.  To produce an architecture and requirements that reflect all of the known/identified issues we should be working on all of these activities concurrently or at the least have a first cut at the safety and risk analysis before starting the requirements.  From a project planning stand-point how these are shown on a schedule are driven by the size of the team and the project schedule.  “What do we need to complete a phase/gate review”  is how the schedule ends up being built versus what do we need to proceed with the systems design and architecture. [Read more…]

Guest Post by Paul Kostek (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Here in Seattle we’ve had several interesting incidents/accidents with personal UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) or drones.

In one case a person flew their UAV into the Space Needle, no damage and no one was hurt; at a parade an operator lost control and hit and knocked out a parade attendee and the operator was cited by police; UAV stuck on power lines over a lake, result – power turned off and UAV recovered at a cost of $35K and the operator was not found; and just recently a UAV was flown into the Ferris wheel on the waterfront, no damage to the wheel though a table on a nearby deck was destroyed.

In the first two of these cases the operators were identified and contacted by Seattle Police. No one has stepped forward in the third and fourth, and since the FAA database is not in place yet, the only means to track them may be through the manufacturer. [Read more…]