The definition of a mission critical system is that a failure can have disastrous consequences, including death, destruction, bankrupting entire big companies, economic crisis, …
Examples for such mission critical systems are:
- Air traffic control,
- Industrial processes, e.g. in chemical industry,
- Atomic power plants,
- Railway interlocking systems,
- Maritime control,
- Big stock traders.
Of course, such systems are usually designed in a redundant way, such that one mistake should not cause a failure of the whole system.
One of the most critical components of such a system is human machine interaction.
Why is this component so critical?