Software in Maritime: Cost efficient Quality Management and Control

Software is to an increasing degree delivering value to the maritime industry through, e.g., optimized energy use, prolonged equipment life, bridge decision support, integrated control systems, alarm systems, and emergency shut-down systems. However, as the amount of software onboard vessels increases, so does the possibilities for undependable vessel behavior. Based on research performed in cooperation between yards, equipment manufacturers and standards professionals during a multinational, multi-organization joint industry project, it has become clear that there is a concern that the measures required by vessel and equipment buyers may not be fully adequate for tomorrow´s software controlled vessels. Standard products are engineered into a system as one phase, and then integrated, parameterized, and tuned in a compressed time space, on site. Based on incidents investigated in the research project, needs for increased attention to certain foci areas in large scale software engineering are identified. Furthermore, a framework for overall quality assessment is suggested, based on suggestions from senior industry professionals in eight organizations from four European countries.