RAMS Management

The con­cept phase is about the deve­lo­p­ment of the cor­re­spon­ding RAMS requi­re­ments for hard­ware and soft­ware and the plan­ning of the RAMS acti­vi­ties in the pro­ject by the respon­si­ble RAMS manager.

This is checked:

• What RAMS acti­vi­ties are requi­red, and who is respon­si­ble for them?
• What are the risks in the inten­ded appli­ca­ti­on scenario?
• Which mea­su­res are nee­ded to limit the risks?

The results are a preli­mi­na­ry risk ana­ly­sis (e.g. Preli­mi­na­ry Hazard Ana­ly­sis), a RAMS Plan and a RAMS Requi­re­ment Spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on, which can also con­tain spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons for the requi­red safe­ty inte­gri­ty (SIL/PL).

During the deve­lo­p­ment and design phase, the RAMS engi­neers work tog­e­ther with the deve­lo­pers to check whe­ther the RAMS requi­re­ments can be met with the sel­ec­ted sys­tem design.

To do this:

• The RAM para­me­ters for the indi­vi­du­al com­pon­ents and inte­gra­tes them into the quan­ti­ta­ti­ve risk ana­ly­zes and defi­nes the avo­id­ance and detec­tion mea­su­res for errors the preli­mi­na­ry risk ana­ly­zes in depth (e.g.  FMEA/FMECA for com­pon­ents) are determined.
• The hard­ware and soft­ware for the safe­ty func­tions are deve­lo­ped and docu­men­ted in accordance with the requi­re­ments ari­sing from the respec­ti­ve SIL in accordance with the requi­re­ments of the func­tion­al safe­ty stan­dards (e.g. EN 61508, EN 50129, EN 13849).
• Appli­ca­ti­on con­di­ti­ons and safe­ty ins­truc­tions are spe­ci­fied for later use.

This phase is about fina­li­zing the RAMS docu­ments and veri­fy­ing the imple­men­ta­ti­on of all mea­su­res (tech­no­lo­gy, sys­tem docu­men­ta­ti­on) for the accep­tance tests.

That includes:

• Docu­men­ta­ti­on of the imple­men­ted mea­su­res to avoid errors in the risk analysis
• Com­ple­ti­on of the RAM and safe­ty demons­tra­ti­on inclu­ding vali­da­ti­on reports and the asso­cia­ted RAMS manage­ment reports for hard­ware and software
• Com­ple­ti­on of the con­for­mi­ty assess­ment as part of the CE marking
• Proof of main­taina­bi­li­ty of the system

RAMS is also an important topic in later operation.

This is about:

• To know the achie­ved relia­bi­li­ty and avai­la­bi­li­ty of the sys­tem (FRACAS or war­ran­ty case or field data evaluation)
• Making decis­i­ons on sys­tem impro­ve­ment or main­ten­an­ce opti­miza­ti­on (e.g. via an RCM analysis)
• Eva­lua­te safe­ty rele­vant inci­dents and deri­ve appro­pria­te mea­su­res in safe­ty management

As a result, the ope­ra­tor or manu­fac­tu­rer is then able to defi­ne rea­li­stic RAMS requi­re­ments for future pro­ducts or to spe­ci­fy upgrades or pro­duct improvements.