Dependability standards: an international perspective

Abstract

This paper is an overview of current activities within the international standards community to harmonize efforts in the dependability field. Cooperation and coordination among different national and international bodies dealing with standards is essential to achieve coherency within a horizontal standards activity such as in dependability standards. The author presents some recent results of this cooperation, in particular, the activities of the QDS (Quality, Dependability and Statistics) committee of ISO and IEC. He also shows specific instances where coordination among international standards bodies has been lacking and indicates potential dangers and pitfalls arising from this, specifically, in terms of contractual conflicts.