Futron’s Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) approach provides you with a logical and systematic methodology to help develop safe, sustainable, and cost effective solutions to achieve your programmatic and technology goals. Futron distinguishes itself from the competition by using the correct mix of engineering science specialties, modeling and simulations, and mathematics and data analysis. Our risk analysts are experienced aerospace engineers qualified to provide a depth of understanding of the systems and missions being analyzed. Because we understand your problems and needs, we take the art, utility, and value of risk assessment to the next level.
PRA is ideal for identifying and assessing risks in complex technological systems. Use the knowledge you gain about the risks to your system to cost-effectively improve its safety and performance. If performed early in the design and development cycle with the design, engineering, and operations communities actively engaging in its performance, the PRA becomes another design tool for minimizing risks to your system’s safety and performance.
PRA is a rigorous technical construct that can be used in countless complex technological applications to reveal design, operations, and maintenance vulnerabilities to enhance safety and reduce costs. Originally developed for assessing risks to safety, PRA studies and attempts to realistically model the entire system and the resulting combinations of events and their interactions, which may result in an undesired consequence. It introduces measures, in the form of frequencies or probabilities of occurrence, which may be used to prioritize the handling of identified risks and serve as metrics for monitoring and tracking these risks.
PRA presents a systematic method to:
- Identify what can go wrong with a system (combinations of events);
- Understand why or how it might go wrong (mechanisms of ‘failure’ / occurrence) so it can be corrected;
- Understand how often it might go wrong (frequencies of occurrence) so alternatives may be compared or mitigation strategies evaluated;
- Determine the consequences if it does go wrong (end- states) to understand the relative importance of the ‘wrongs;’ and
- Engage the design and development community to the fullest extent, to facilitate the first four items in this list and design-out the ‘wrongs’ to the greatest extent possible.
Benefits
A PRA analysis is a decision support tool.
In safety and reliability applications, PRA helps you to identify design and operation weaknesses in complex systems. This helps you to systematically and effectively uncover and prioritize improvements. You can also use PRA methodology to compare different technologies and prioritize them in the order of their likelihood of successfully supporting mission requirements.
PRA forces the analysts and all involved to systematically consider how the system and its mission might fail or otherwise go wrong.
PRA is a systematic means of engendering questions that might have otherwise gone unconsidered; the process of answering these questions can lead to insights or solutions not previously considered. PRA forces you to ask:
- What alternatives exist to achieve the same system and mission goals?
- If the cost of these alternatives is too high, how might these ‘wrongs’ be ‘righted’?
