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FOREWORD

The Foreword to the Procedures for Air Navigation - Operations (PANS-OPS, Doc 8168) Volume II, states that "The implementation of procedures is the responsibility of Contracting States." This implies that the State authorities have the final responsibility for the procedures published within their territory.

The procedure design process may be carried out by States themselves or by delegation from States to third parties such as air traffic services (ATS) providers, private companies or another State.

When automation is used during the procedure design process, States must ensure that automation functions have been validated to ensure compliance of the final results with applicable criteria.

Implementation of the validation can be carried out by States themselves or by delegation to any recognized third party (such as another State, an ATS provider or a private company).

This manual is guidance material; it provides one means, but not the only means, for validation of the functions of procedure design tools. Other means include a Software Safety Assurance System, as part of a Safety Management System (comprising requirements for software assurance level, software verification assurances, software configuration management assurances, software requirements traceability assurances, software requirements validity assurance).

Note.- The manual may also be useful for software development companies wishing to demonstrate conformance to applicable criteria. It may also be of interest to any person or organization involved in the procedure design domain.

This manual has been developed with active input from representatives of the procedure design software industry. It is recognized that other software validation documents not specific to the flight procedure design domain exist, such as the ones defined by IEEE, CMMI, EUROCONTROL and RTCA.

Comments on this manual, particularly with respect to its application, usefulness and scope of coverage, would be appreciated from States and ICAO Technical Cooperation field missions. These will be taken into consideration in the preparation of subsequent editions.