An assurance case (or ‘safety case’) is a structured argument that presents evidence in support of claims about the safety of a system or product. A proper safety case weaves the results of a potentially large volume of safety analyses into a focused and understandable conclusion that can be used as a basis for deciding if a system or product can be safely deployed.

Socrates, our proprietary tool, is a collaborative assurance case management platform for critical systems. It offers an efficient way for your team to develop and maintain assurance cases as they grow in size and complexity. The collaborative environment and analytical capabilities of Socrates accelerate assurance case development and help your team stay focused on high-value engineering tasks.

Socrates™ is used to create and maintain a structured argument that can be rendered in various forms, including a tree-like graphical representation. With Socrates™, a structured argument is much more than a picture. Socrates™ users can elaborate the structure of the argument with descriptive text to capture claims, assumptions, contextual information, insights, limitations, evidence, and other important details that contribute to the overall top-level claim. Elements of the argument can be linked to safety requirements, design documentation, analyses, V&V results, and other artifacts that support the argument. Built-in rule-based checking tools and other features help new Socrates™ users quickly become skilled in creating assurance case arguments.

The development of high-quality assurance cases lies at the heart of our approach to managing safety and cybersecurity risk for complex systems. In addition to supporting compliance with industry standards or applicable regulatory codes, an assurance case effectively communicates a basis for trust and confidence in the safety of a system to all stakeholders, including decision makers.