Why is Tool Qualification an Additional Consideration?

DO-178B includes tool qualification as "additional consideration". Clearly there is a problem.

Once it is deteremined that a development tool or the verification tool requires qualification, the tool qualification should be done prior to its use. And since this determination is done at the planning stage, this activity should be moved from section 12 of the DO-178B (dealing with Additional Consideration) to Chapter 11 (Software Life Cycle Data).

Tool Qualification data should be made an integral part of Software Life Cycle data.

Comments

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[Koteswara]

Yes, I agree with you regarding the tool qualification activities. This issue will be resolved once the DO-178C is released. DO-178C has an additional supplement for the Tool qualification activities, where in it elaborates more on the tool qualification processes.

[RMH]

There have been numerous instances of development tool qualification - and it is as suggested very expensive. For example, automatic code generators have been qualified as development tools as the applicant is depending upon the output of the code generator - and wishes to do so for the tool being used in the same manner on a number of projects (thereby spreading the cost).

[Amitabh]

@Pradeep, I have never come across a single instance of a need to qualify development tool till date.
There could be 3 reasons:
a) I have not done enough projects
b) It must be prohibitively expensive to qualify a development tool
c) Carrying out verification as detailed by DO-178B chapter 6 must be cheaper than qualifying a development tool.

[Pradeep]

@Amitabh. How difficult is the qualification of development tool when compared to the qualification of verification tool?

[RMH]

Section 11 simply deals with Life Cycle Data - so perhaps there is a case to move the contents of Section 12.2.3.1 and Section 12.2.3.2 to Section 11. However, this was not done so as to keep everything related to tool qualification together. For the future, Tool Qualification as related to DO-178C will pe provided as a separate document entirely.

[Pradeep]

@ bharathi : Tool Qualification Data of S/w development tools to be controlled as CC1 whereas for s/w verification tools it is CC2

[Amitabh]

As per DO-178B para 12.2.3.b, "The tool qualification data should be controlled as Control Categorisation 1 (CC1) for software development tools and CC2 for software verification tools."

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[Bharathi Raja]

Is Tool Qualification data comes under CC1 or CC2??