Mission

The mission of the RAMS group is to:

• Develop theory, methods and tools that can be used by the industry to improve the RAMS aspects of their activities.
• Educate RAMS Master and PhD candidates with relevant and thorough knowledge and skills, and with high ethical standards
• Contribute to reducing the major accident risk in the society
• Contribute to safe and environmentally friendly industrial production and transport
• Be trustworthy, innovative and useful for the industry and the society

Aim

The overall aim of the RAMS group is: 

          To be an internationally leading research group on selected topics within the RAMS area, and to offer world-class education in RAMS.

Focus areas

The RAMS group focuses on four areas of research:

1. Reliability Assessment of Safety-Critical Systems - especially safety-instrumented systems such as emergency shutdown systems, fire and gas systems, and automatic train control.
2. Reliability Engineering - where reliability analyses and reliability considerations are integrated into the design and development process of new systems
3. Risk-Based Maintenance Planning - developing methods and plans to prevent accidents caused by lack of, or erroneously performed maintenance.
4. New Methods for Risk Analysis - with emphasis on modeling socio-technical systems in risk analyses in the operational phase, where results are used in operational decision-making.
   
   

Three Categories of Research

The RAMS group focuses on three categories of research:

• Basic research without external funding
• Basic and applied research mainly based on PhD projects
• Externally funded research projects (e.g., funded by the EU, the Norwegian Research Council, and joint industry projects.)

The RAMS group focuses on basic and applied research. Our mission is to support RAMS consulting companies, not to compete with them.

Strategy

The mission of the RAMS group (see above) shall be fulfilled through:

• Recruitment and systematic development of top-qualified employees, PhD students, and Master students
• Continuous focus on quality in all activities
• Dedicated and innovative education
• Close cooperation with advanced and relevant industry in Norway and abroad
• Close cooperation with the best researchers worldwide
• Creation and maintenance of a thorough RAMS knowledge-base
• Openness and active dissemination of RAMS research results and knowledge
• Efficient and involving management of the group