Overview
Write answers to FOUR of the following questions INCLUDING at least ONE
of Question 5 or Question 6, based on the scenario described. The total
length of the whole assignment should be 2,000 words. Find and use both the
readings provided in the teaching materials and other sources (to be found by
the student) to assist your work. Each question is weighted at 25% of the
total assessment.
Scenario:
You are advising the UK’s newly established National Armaments Director on
the governance architecture for a major new defence acquisition programme:
a next-generation autonomous logistics vehicle expected to cost £3 billion and
enter service in 2035.
Drawing on the lessons of the Ajax programme and the concepts from all six
units of this module, produce a briefing paper (2,000 words) that addresses
FOUR of the following questions INCLUDING at least ONE of Question 5 or
Question 6:
1. How should the programme’s dependability requirements be specified
to avoid the ‘trust that vs trust in’ gap exposed by Ajax?
2. How should reliability analysis and FMECA be structured to capture
emergent, interaction-driven failure modes, including those affecting
human operators?
3. What availability metrics should be defined, including user-defined
metrics, that would expose a gap between mechanical functionality and
operational utility?
4. What adversity types should the governance architecture be designed
to handle, and which environments should be explicitly monitored?
5. How should the programme’s evidence architecture avoid single points
of failure, and which of Jackson’s heuristics should be explicitly
designed into the governance structure?
6. How should the programme implement Safety-II principles, guard
against Rasmussen’s migration dynamic, and measure the resilience of
its own governance?