Month: April 2021

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World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2021

Safety is Everyone’s Business

Whether you are in change of a nuclear reactor, or run a stall on the market, whether you fly a plane or enter data on a terminal, your safety and your businesses safety is an important consideration.

Health and Safety Goes Wrong
Health and Safety Goes Wrong – Not everything is resolved with a hi-vis jacket

Time To Think

Organisations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) encourage us to think and plan before a failure can take place. Businesses should take stock plan and mitigate. The fact that your company has a shelf full of risk assessments does not mean you or your business are safe. Shelfware can be more dangerous than a lightweight dynamic risk assessment performed as part of an engrained ethos. The only problem relying on engrained ideals is they may be difficult to prove in court and certainly difficult to time-stamp with a review date! There should be a balance between the two. Well thought out risk assessments, good training and monitoring and good cultural support.

Stop!!!

Even if we achieve the grail of a well documented and used health and safety plan, there’s always a chance that things can change and go wrong. If you think something is a ‘bit dodgy’ or you can see an accident waiting to happen, you are as complicit in any failure as someone not following the rules or having considered H&S guidance in the first place. So think STOP if you think something is unsafe, raise your concern, do something about it (if it is safe to do so) but try your best not to let disaster happen.

Stay Safe

Whether you are in a ‘dangerous’ area or simply working from home (which may well be more dangerous than a controlled work place – ROSPA say 6000 deaths occur annually in the home in the UK) keep your eyes peeled and watch out for disaster before it strikes.

Just for Fun

I’m not sure we could count all the issues in the “Working at home scenario” above. Certainly the mitigation of a Hi-Vis jacket will have no benefit. We can categorically say this 3SL employee’s work station was tidied-up  staged before this picture was taken! Reply to this Twitter post with the number of hazards you see.

Summary

World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2021 is on the 28th of April 2021, but safety and your health matters everyday.

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Test, Execution and Recording

“It will work…” (Probably)

Based on Photo by Ksenia Chernaya from Pexels
Passed?

No product manager wants to be confirming their solution’s viability without the backup of evidence. It is imperative to test and assure your process or product. Tests should demonstrate conformance with, all the vital parameters that comprise your design; regulatory compliance; ongoing quality.

This whole quality cycle should include test, execution and recording functions.

Appropriate Testing

Cradle TER module - Test Case
Test Case

We should accept that these tests, and the effort used, should be commensurate with the importance of the design element. There’s every reason to test whether a product can place components with sub-millimetre accuracy if we’re designing a circuit board pick and place machine, but within a few mm is probably good enough for a machine placing variable size apples in a packing crate. When testing the same product used in different situations the complexity and accuracy of the test will change. Measuring the slump and hardness of concrete for a garden path, is probably judged by eye, three level compaction in a cone testing for a road, but you’d expect samples to be taken and lab tested it is being poured to form the main tower of a suspension bridge.

Scope

It is also important to test not only for the expected criteria, but the off-norms (off from normal) too. “The program shall accept user input of their weight in kilogrammes and their height in metres. Their BMI shall be displayed as a ratio of their (weight / height) to two decimal places” The previous requirements can be thoroughly tested for a full range of human weights and heights, but then fall over at the first hurdle when a user enters 0 for their height.

Executing

Cradle TER module - Test Run
Test Run

Once developed, the set of tests may need to be run multiple times on the same product as development tweaks are made, or once on each batch of product to ensure ongoing conformity. Services, procedures and physical products can all be tested. Whether that’s timing the office evacuation during a fire drill or the alcohol content of a batch of whiskey. It is also important to recognise that each execution set may need to be full or a partial set of the tests.   Every safety harness may be subject to visual inspection and, checks on fastener operation. Every tenth to a set of detailed measurements and every two hundredth to a full destruction test. The ability to execute a set of tests from our full suite is therefore important.

 

Recording

Cradle TER module - Test Result
Test Result

Finally the test execution will produce a set of results which should be recorded. Not only does the recording provide the traceability your QA (Quality assurance) plan should aim for, but it will allow you to investigate trends. How many failures were there last month? Were there more or fewer than the previous month. Is investigation required?

 

Cradle

Cradle’s TEST module  (Test, Execution & Recording (TER)) allows you to directly link Test Cases to your requirements, needs, or design elements. You can then define Test Plans and Test Executions to group and run these tests. And as you’d expect the tool will record the Test Results against each Test Step.

For more information download an evaluation copy of Cradle or book a webinar now.

TER video

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April 2021 Newsletter

Chicken or Egg

3SL Easter egg
Egg

If you celebrated Easter, you will probably have received an egg. These days they are usually chocolate covered in bright foil which is a modern twist on the dyed and patterned eggs used for centuries.
This April 2021 newsletter looks at the age old argument of which came first the chicken or the egg. It is fairly straightforward in terms of the chocolate version! However, which comes first the requirement or the solution?  Ideally we follow the sequence:

    • User requirement elicitation,
    • System requirements,
    • Design / Solution,
    • Validation/ Test

Real Life

However, we all recognise that doesn’t always happen. The important thing is we  recognise when there is a constraint, and when the client is presenting a pre-formed solution because they believe that’s the answer.

Take for example a wind turbine operator who has a number of offshore facilities, which, when load is low, produce hydrogen by electrolysis at point of generation (minimising electrical transfer losses). If the client approaches with the requirement for a boat to bring the hydrogen ashore, there are two possible scenarios. They have not looked at the bigger picture – a pipeline may be more efficient, or they have investigated the alternatives and a vessel is what’s most practical. In the latter case the requirement is most definitely for a boat. However, if we are approached with a requirement for the boat to have a built in tank to transfer so many thousands of litres of liquid hydrogen, we may be in a different position.

Know Your Domain

If our industry expertise shows that the fitting of a number of individual standard transport container shaped hydrogen storage units could be better it should be discussed. We may be able to demonstrate the transport, over land to the nearest gas network connection point, would negate the need to build pipework to the docks. Here the user requirement has been unnecessarily limited by a proposed solution. We  are in a strong position to help elicit the base requirement, and then provide a more appropriate system requirement for the vessel.  Recognising that the customer has ‘built a solution into their requirement’ is part of our job to evaluate.  In this instance we have a chicken (boat constraint) we’re just not sure of the breed (type of boat/tank arrangement) will need to be laid!

Left-shift

The earlier in the engineering process that these concepts can be discussed, perhaps presenting a range of options the better. Left shift of the process can prevent costly mistakes. Especially if you blindly implement the initial requirement without providing your industry expertise.

    • Initial user requirement
    • Preliminary suggested solutions and optional system requirements
    • Revisit and further elicitation of user requirements
    • System requirements based on agreed constraints and refined user requirements
    • A design and solution that best solves the underlying problem
    • Validation and test

Further reading about a related topic,  functional and non-functional requirements, can be found in this article.

 

New Cradle Features

Risk graph exampleWe highlighted Risk Management and the new Cradle Risk Module in our March mailshot.

We also noted how you can add formalised lists to Cradle items in our FAQ section.

 

Training Course

The next public training course is for requirements management in May – Public Online Training Course – Requirements Management May 2021. Book your place to avoid disappointment. These courses are open to all, if you want a course specific to your company or with tailored content please don’t hesitate to contact salesdetails@threesl.com

Social Media

Twitter

Integral Powerchain Tweet March 2021
Integral Powerchain Tweet March 2021

We acknowledged the size of the ‘system’ when talking about a whole county’s EV infrastructure, in Integral Powerchain‘s tweet.

We hope you had a good St. Patrick’s Day,  we noted the benefits of virtualisation.  We were amazed at the very beginning of April by the advances in ‘Quantum Computation!!!’

Finally

That’s all for our April 2021 Newsletter, we hope you haven’t eaten too much chocolate!

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Quantum Computation – With Standard Binary Logic

Quantum Computing

The tantalising power of quantum computing offers unbounded possibilities to solve some of the biggest problems in computing today. So far the need to keep the Quantum Bits (QBits / QuBits) stable has proved the barrier to quantum computers being widely deployed. Laboratory conditions with super low temperatures and large magnetic fields have allowed the theory to be proved, but limit the practical implementation.

Theory

Our current silicon computers rely on simple 0 and 1 storage of bits to represent the data. These ons and offs are electrically, or optically stored and they are either one or the other. QuBits however are neither a 0 or a 1 until they are actually read. They exist in a ‘probability cloud’ between the true or false. The interaction of all the QuBits changes the probability that the bit will yield a 0 or 1 answer when read. This allows a massive scaling of parallel computation considering multiple avenues of a problem simultaneously.

New Possibilities

The possibility that standard silicon based binary computers could be made to operate in a quantum state has raised many exciting possibilities. Studies at the Loe D’a Buncum institute hypothesises that a stated proof;  that Black is White, or True is False, can be ‘proved’  either way. This uncertainty, they are terming an Argú (derived from the Latin argumentum “a logical argument; evidence, ground, support, proof”). They expect this will be widely applied to Silicon Based Computing Platforms (SBCP).

Theory

To paraphrase their research observe the following:

Black is White data definition
Black is White

It can be seen that the composition of mixed primary light colours Red, Green and Blue gives White light. However, the same composite calculation for pigment Cyan, Yellow and Magenta gives Black. The Argú in this case is stated as :

 Three primary colours mixed = Black = White.

This provides a state that can not be seen as a definitive answer (because there is a missing  element  – are we talking  light or  pigment). The key to unlocking and providing the definitive answer is being termed the Clú. This is the missing piece of information that will allow the quantum measurement to be extracted.

Standard Computers

Because the concept itself, the Argú is simple to represent in standard boolean logic on a silicon computer, there is no need for any special cooling or magnetic field to retain the uncertainty. The  Clú can also be held as a standard concept. The rest of the problem continues to be expressed in multiple Argús but not ‘finalised’. At the point where every possible Argú has been raised for a particular problem, the  Clú is combined using standard logic simplified with De Morgan’s laws resulting in the final result.

Summary

Both QuBit and SBCP computing offer the gateway to many possibilities, but it should also be remembered that those without a Clú should not attempt to Argú.