Artisan announces GSN Modeler

Artisan has announced the GSN Modeler, which provides safety-critical systems developers with a visual modelling environment for the creation of safety arguments using the goal structuring notation.

Artisan has announced the GSN Modeler, which provides developers of safety-critical systems with a visual modelling environment for the creation of safety arguments using the goal structuring notation (GSN).

The company said the Artisan GSN Modeler will appeal to safety case developers within the aerospace, defence, transportation and power industries that need to rigorously document and apply safety cases.

The GSN is available free to new applicants accepted onto Artisan's Early Availability Programme.

Goal structuring notation (GSN) provides the de facto standard for the graphical notation for safety argument definition and documentation.

GSN shows how safety case goals are broken down into sub-goals, which are supported by evidence (solutions), then states the strategies used, giving explanations of the rationale (assumptions and justifications), all within a context.

The GSN Modeler provides a visual environment for designing and documenting all of the GSN elements or nodes, along with the relationships between them.

Artisan GSN Modeler runs on a multi-user repository so that safety engineers can model and share numerous independent safety arguments, within the same database.

Each of the arguments can then be partitioned to provide sub-sections of the overall argument.

Individual safety engineers can focus on specific sub-sections, in the knowledge that Artisan GSN Modeler is managing the bigger picture.

Within this multi-user environment, safety engineers can also lock sub-sections, preventing unintentional updates.

Once a sub-section is complete it can be published and made available for use by other sub-sections.

To clarify the various abstraction levels, arguments are constructed hierarchically, using goals, strategies, solutions, assumptions, justifications and context elements.

As safety arguments are designed, Artisan GSN Modeler automatically validates them to ensure that they meet the basic rules of GSN modelling.

Artisan GSN Modeler automatically manages the underlying processes involved in the creation of arguments.

As elements are created, parent/child relationships are automatically generated.

Additional relationships can also be created allowing sub-sections of an argument to be linked together - drag and drop techniques are used to capture these design constructs.

As arguments are developed, each element is identified with a name and number.

These numbers can be prefixed and configured by the user.

As arguments are evolved and restructured, the element numbers are automatically re-sequenced so that it matches the hierarchical structure, giving argument consistency and saving time.

Artisan GSN Modeler also allows reusable arguments patterns to be created from best-practice arguments or snippets of existing arguments for use as future argument templates.

This re-use of proven arguments both reduces the safety case development effort needed on new projects and improves safety case quality.

The arguments designed and documented within Artisan GSN Modeler can be imported and exported using XML files.

This enables argument transfer between products, putting safety arguments in the hands of everyone who needs them.

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