Modeling and analysis of risks in systems-of-systems

Background

In today's society, more and more activities are connected and made dependent on each other. This leads to better services and lower costs, often through the support of digitization. At the same time, the interconnection means that new vulnerabilities arise and complexity increases. Traditional methods for analyzing risks are then not sufficient. The methods used today for risk analysis have difficulty handling interconnected systems. This is because they focus on failures in the parts of the systems, rather than problems arising from deficiencies in the interaction of such a system-of-systems. Often, they also assume that probabilities of events are known, but in these days reality changes too quickly to gather relevant statistics. The complexity also becomes impossible to handle with today's manual reviews. In this project we are looking at new methods based on systems thinking. This means a greater focus on the whole and the interaction between the parts, than on the individual systems that must cooperate. The method is based on a modeling of connected capabilities. By looking at how these interact, and what dynamics arise, new types of risks can be identified and addressed.

Purpose

The project aims to increase the efficiency of analysis and management of risks in critical societal interconnected systems-of-systems. This is achieved by risk analysts, who, with a certain amount of work, become able to identify and reduce significantly more risks than they can manage with today's methods and the same amount of effort.

Goals

The concrete goals of the project are to:

1. Develop and refine a general process for systematic risk analysis of interconnected societal systems, where each process step is supported by modeling methods and tools.
   
2. Validate the process through three comprehensive case studies in situations with different characteristics.
   
3. Package the results so that they are reusable by others after the project ends.
   
   
   

Activities

The project focuses on finding new approaches for the analysis and management of risks in critical societal system-of-systems. The main result is a general process, with supporting methods and tools. To ensure that the new method can handle real, complex situations, it will be designed from the outset using case studies. Three different cases will be studied:

1. Rescue operation in the event of a forest fire
2. Healthcare during a pandemic
3. Future autonomous transport systems
   

External project members

Pontus Svensson, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden