Chapter 7

Questions to Consider

1. Is this example of software problems holding up the introduction of a major new product and impacting a firm’s customers and suppliers unusual, or is it a common occurrence?

Yes, because the delay of new products is a big lose to suppliers and a waste of time for the customers. This scenario is unusual at manufacturer companies especially the attention is eyed to the Boeing Dreamliner because they boast and stated that they have the fast, fuel-efficient midsized airplanes but fails to deliver it on time and missed schedules.

2. What can organizations do to reduce the negative consequences of software development problems in the production of their products and the operation of their business processes and facilities?

Maybe the organizations should know their manufacturers capability and don’t base their service on their machines and engines rather by checking their software of the manufacturer if it has no defect and dependable.

Patriot Missiles Failure

Questions to Consider

1. With the benefit of hindsight, what steps could have been taken during development of the Patriot software to avoid the problems that led to the loss of life? Do you think these steps would have improved the Patriot’s effectiveness enough to make it obvious that the missile was a strong deterrent against the Scud? Why or why not?

The United State’s developer should know at first that the software is not at its perfection and secures the surroundings if they will hurt people if error occurs. This may be effective if this step would be improved the Patriot’s effectiveness.

2. What ethical decisions do you think the U.S. military made in choosing to deploy the Patriot missile to Israel and Saudi Arabia and in reporting the effectiveness of the Patriot system?

From the situation is, maybe at first the U.S. should visit the range of the missile to where it will deploy and if the deployment of the missile is restricted from the intruders or crowd.


3. What key lessons from this example of safety-critical software development could be applied to the development of business information system software?

Incident reporting systems can support the development of safety-critical computer systems in a number of ways:

-Identifying common problems. Software and hardware developers may identify a number of bugs or potential failure modes in a developing design. Incident reporting systems provide a means of gathering this information so that it can be collated to find out if individual problems form part of a wider pattern. For example, every office may suffer the same problems from a particular faulty component.

-Communicating development concerns. Developers may also observe potential problems in their colleague's work and find it difficult to report these concerns. Anonymous or confidential incident reporting systems provide a forum for these concerns without necessarily exposing the employee as a `whistle blower'.

-Communicating lessons learned and best practice. Collated information can be exchanged between units do that best practice will be followed throughout a company. This not only applies to the recommendations in the aftermath of an adverse event but also to the ways in which previous failures have been detected and mitigated.

-Supporting risk assessment. The frequency of previous failures can be monitored using incident reporting systems. They probably only provide useful best case estimates as many adverse events may not be reported by personnel even if they observe them.

Reference/Source: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~johnson/teaching/safety/exams/practice_solutions1.html