Safety in design – Can one industry learn from another?

This paper reviews procedures from five different industries for building safety into design processes, mainly in the context of software development. The industries reviewed are Air Traffic Management, Railway, Aircraft, Process (chemical; nuclear power; food), and Automobile. For each industry it is possible to extract key aspects of the respective safety contexts, safety principles, and tools and methods used for achieving safety-in-design. Generalities are discussed, and then the industry of Air Traffic Management is used as an example to see how cross-industry learning on safety can occur. It is found that ATM can indeed learn from other industries, and possibly vice versa. However, such learning requires a deep understanding of the safety and design culture of the industry seeking new design safety assurance approaches.