How Confident
Are You In Your Results?
Inaccurate
Fault Tree software replaced with ITEM ToolKit
In any Reliability
or Risk analysis, confidence in the results is paramount. Once the trust
in software tools results are compromised, questions arise in every aspect
of the tools integrity.
In 2002 a Government Lab purchased a non-ITEM Toolkit Fault Tree software
tools to assist them in Safety Critical Analyses. As one would expect,
under the rigors of providing safe and reliable defense systems, the requirements
of the national lab were comprehensive and included:
- Multiple analysis techniques and methods
- Intuitive user interface
- Flexible printing and documentation
They selected what appeared to be "the intuitive solution". However once
the software was used on a real project to support a series of design
reviews; this tool was found to be challenging and less than intuitive.
In the midst of critical design reviews, it was uncovered that the software
platform was unstable, printing of simple reports and diagrams were impossible
and often cut sets were missing from the results. This led to questioning
of the accuracy of results and loss of trust in the software tool itself.
In the end, engineers had to abandon the tool and resorted to spreadsheets
and graphical tools to conduct the analyses.
ITEM Software Chosen
Out of frustration, the Safety Assurance group started looking for an
alternative. As one Assurance Engineer stated "We were looking for a tool
that was painless to use for the casual user without the need for re-learning".
Commenting about his frustrations with the use of their earlier fault
tree tool, he continued "simple actions of deleting a few events and printing
of a tree used to require technical support assistance which usually resulted
in unsatisfactory output".
As a replacement to the abandoned tool, the National Lab evaluated, tested
and selected ITEM Software ToolKit™. Within weeks of the purchase, the
Item Software team was on site providing cost-effective training and bringing
the user community rapidly up to speed.
"The ITEM ToolKit™ Fault Tree Module provides a variety of analysis methods
supporting both simple calculations and complex analytical solutions"
as one engineer stated. In comparing his experiences, he continued, "As
a casual user I am able to easily modify my analyses and print out reports
and diagrams without a painful experience. We certainly like the "one-click"
creation of fault tree diagrams into Word™ documents". He concluded, "Item
Software is a better way to go instead of being tied to our previous tool
vendor, we finally have confidence in the results".
About ITEM Software
We were established in 1986 with the mission of becoming a leading, global
vendor of software tools for risk assessment applications with a focus
on reliability, availability, maintainability and safety. Today
our solutions are widely used throughout the world by major companies
and government agencies in sectors like defense, aerospace, electronics,
telecommunication, energy, medical and transportation. We pride ourselves
for our exceptional customer loyalty, which is a direct result of our
total commitment to product quality and outstanding customer support.
We service our clients from our regional offices in California, Maryland
and the United Kingdom, and our affiliates in Asia, Australia and South
America.
