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14 Apr 2026, by Amy Sarcevic
The complexity of today’s railway systems is creating a “sink or swim” situation for systems integrators in which traditional safety assurance is no longer fit-for-purpose, and newer methods are less forgiving of knowledge gaps.
In this environment, Collin Song of Mage Consulting says systems integrators need a sophisticated approach to avoid “spectacular failures” and “unnecessary pain” in their quest to achieve safety acceptance.
“Safety cases were typically developed by the primary contractor in a flat structure. But this can be problematic when assuring complex systems, because the safety evidence of the underlying elements goes beyond the technical understanding of the systems integrator and is sometimes confidential,” Collin said.
A better way
To address this, Mage has devised an approach to safety assurance in which systems integrators commission specific safety evidence from their suppliers.
Collin says this approach provides an extra layer of rigour and caters to more complex and hierarchical systems.
“As systems are getting more complex, we need suppliers to bring in their expertise. As a systems integrator, you don’t necessarily know how each of your subsystems, or anything beneath you, works. You know you need product ‘x’ to provide a certain function, but you don’t necessarily know how it works. So, you cannot provide assurance.
“In this kind of system, we need suppliers to assure for themselves, and we as an integrator need to think about how we can utilise the safety evidence produced by them to support the safety argument of the product that we are trying to build.”
How does it work?
A systems approach to safety assurance requires both a technical setup and commercial arrangement to work.
“The technical aspect considers how we structure the safety assurance program to make it all work and allow suppliers to contribute. The contractual arrangements underpins this and ensures we receive what we are asking for.”
Collin says the approach is premised on a basic principle.
“When you try to resolve a very big problem with systems thinking, you typically break that problem down to smaller tasks, then give each smaller task to a different team to work on independently. Eventually, you integrate the outcomes from different teams back together. This is the core thinking embedded in this approach.
“When aiming to manage the safety of the complex system, we want to understand how each individual package that we procure from our suppliers will contribute to the system hazard of the said complex system.
“We then want to decompose all of these to the corresponding supplier and ask them to manage their specific hazard contributions through our contractual mechanism. So, they can provide evidence and say ‘yes, we have managed this part’. Then we integrate those pieces of evidence into the overall safety argument.”
Suppliers must also provide a safety case – a document collecting all the safety evidence they have managed on their part.
“System integrators then would only need to focus themselves on addressing the incremental part that each system supplier cannot manage within themselves, which is what are the potential hazardous situations when all these little black boxes are combined together to work under one system architecture” Collin added.
Challenges to consider
While this approach is more robust than traditional safety assurance, Collin says neither the technical nor contractual setup are as simple as they appear at first glance.
On the technical front, systems integrators need to set up an overall framework for they envision how their suppliers could contribute to which part of the safety argument. An inadequate framework could create gaps or duplications in the safety evidence.
Contractually, it must be structured in a way to enable systems integrators to coordinate suppliers while also facilitating independent and concurrent working of the suppliers.
“Often, we see that the contracts are not set up right and when the integrators task their suppliers, the suppliers reject the request, which leads to contract variations and increased costs.”
Best practice
To ensure both aspects run smoothly, Mage has developed some best practice techniques.
Its technical setup uses a “model based approach” with a strong focus in safety planning.
“Through adequate planning, we try to clearly draw the boundaries of responsibilities between the integrator and suppliers, and between one supplier to another supplier.
“This also requires the “correct” way of defining hazard that can be used as the demarcation of what has been assured by suppliers and what are to be assured by the systems integrator.”
On the commercial side, Collin believes that simple and clear contractual requirements are the best approach.
“It ensures that suppliers provide fully certified products, together with all the safety evidence required to obtain the safety certification, to reduce the burden on systems integrators.”
Further insight
Sharing more on this approach, Collin and his colleague Zoltan David are delivering a joint presentation at the upcoming ARISO Rail Safety Conference, hosted by Informa.
Zoltan has a special interest in setting up scope of works / contracts for suppliers from a systems integrator point of view and brings a fresh perspective on the commercial side to enrich this topic.
Learn more and register your tickets here.
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