In the highly regulated aviation industry, meeting compliance standards is non-negotiable: without certification, an aircraft cannot legally fly or enter the global market, effectively halting business operations. DO-178C and DO-254 are standards that provide guidance for the safe development of aviation software and hardware. Compliance also brings about a plethora of significant benefits, such as enhanced safety, reduced risk, improved efficiency, and a heightened competitive advantage. But achieving compliance can also be challenging, especially for organizations still relying on paper-based or legacy documentation processes, which slow development cycles and increase errors. That’s why many leaders in the aviation market have adopted application lifecycle management solutions. Tailored with capabilities to meet the aviation industry's needs, ALM brings seamless and efficient compliance efforts within reach.
What is DO-178C?
DO-178C, the Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment certification, is the most widely used approach for demonstrating the airworthiness of an aviation or aerospace system. In other words, using this standard to guide your design process is the main way to ensure that your airborne software development is producing an aircraft that is fit for flight—and ready to go to market internationally.
The origins of this standard date back all the way to the 1970s, when manufacturers began to increase the amount of integrated software and hardware in aircraft. This led the industry to create a prescriptive set of design assurance processes to ensure aircraft safety. Over time, the standard has become less prescriptive and more objective-based, which gives organizations more flexibility in terms of how they achieve the recommended guidelines.
DO-178C is based on a fundamental framework for defining Development Assurance Levels. There are five different levels, each one relating to the gravity of what happens if the software fails, ranging from Level A (“Catastrophic”) to Level E (“No effect on safety”). The higher the risk, the more rigorous the certification process is, and the more safety standards organizations must comply with. The standard also describes the required stages for planning, development, and implementation when it comes to safe design assurance processes for delivering high-quality aviation software.
What is DO-254?
Meet DO-178C’s "little sibling” standard, DO-254. The Design Assurance for Airborne Electronic Hardware certification is the go-to guideline for manufacturing airborne electronic hardware. Although it is often considered the smaller counterpart to the DO-178C, it is no less complex.
The standard kicks off with a classification system that allows electronic hardware items to be separated into simple or complex categories, and then provides systematic design guidelines for both. DO-254 is like DO-178C in that it uses a Design Assurance Level (DAL) framework. DO-254 also uses a range of five levels, ranging from A-E, with the most severe being A and the least impactful being E. Again, the efforts needed to achieve compliance scale along with the amount of damage a hardware failure can cause.
DO-254 is younger than its counterpart, however, it was formally recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2005 in order to respond to the increasing use (and complexity) of varied electronic hardware included in airborne systems. The problem was that the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) didn't make the same decision. Because of this discrepancy, there was confusion regarding the need for compliance with DO-254 in airborne systems, especially in the case of simple hardware, until quite recently.
This was clarified in 2020 in EASA AMC 20-152A, which brought:
- Formal recognition and clarification on the use of DO-254
- Modern classifications of airborne electronic hardware
- New compliance objectives for individual types of airborne electronic hardware
- Harmonization with FAA guidelines
Advantages of DO-178C compliance and DO-254 compliance
Compliance with DO-178C and DO-254 helps organizations prioritize passenger, crew, and operator safety over all else. Meeting the standard also reduces the risk of software or hardware failure, builds trust and credibility in the industry, and opens the doors to large-scale global markets.
Enhanced safety
DO-178 and DO-254 compliance ensures that software and hardware meet rigorous safety standards, minimizing the risk of failures that could lead to catastrophic incidents. Both standards enforce structured design and testing processes that prioritize passenger and crew safety. By following these standards, organizations can better detect and address potential safety issues early in development.
Reduced risk
There is a lot of inherent risk when it comes to aviation—while flying has never been safer, the increased use of integrated software and hardware requires a heightened focus on documentation and testing to ensure everything operates smoothly. The ultimate goal of DO-178C and DO-254 compliance is to mitigate as much risk as possible by:
- Identifying and mitigating potential software and hardware vulnerabilities through rigorous testing
- Enforcing structured development processes, reducing the chance of oversight or critical mistakes
- Requiring organizations to surpass specific safety thresholds, lowering the likelihood of system malfunctions
Improved efficiency
Since DO-178C and DO-254 bring structure and consistency into the development process, they can greatly improve efficiency by reducing uncertainty, preventing rework, and streamlining repetitive tasks.
Better reputation
Achieving compliance with stringent safety standards such as DO-178C and DO-254 demonstrates a commitment to quality and safety, boosting your company’s reputation in the industry. Companies known for consistently meeting these standards are viewed as reliable and capable of delivering safe mission-critical systems, which in turn strengthens their brand image and positions them as leaders in their field.
Increased market access
Many projects in aviation and defense require DO-178C and DO-254 compliance as a prerequisite, enabling access to international markets and high-profile contracts that non-compliant companies cannot compete for.
The challenge of paper-based documentation systems in aviation software development
Some organizations still use paper-based documentation processes, making it extremely difficult to stay on top of changes and give the whole team the visibility needed to manage change and collaborate effectively. The result? Long review cycles, an increased chance of human error, costly fixes, and client approval delays that slow the project down overall.
Legacy tooling in aviation systems development isn’t much better
Imagine different versions of documents shared back and forth by email or within consumer-grade file-sharing platforms, or outdated tools which are still considered mission-critical but are difficult to update and integrate with new systems. While these systems may not be paper based, they share many of the same challenges. Using various systems with incomplete data migration and unnecessary administration can create just as much of a visibility and traceability gap as a paper-based documentation system can. In both scenarios, the team inevitably spends a lot of time on non-critical work, which becomes costly in terms of both time and resources.
Aviation systems compliance: tooling makes all the difference
Many legacy tools make DO-178C and DO-254 compliance difficult to achieve. Compliance is a resource-intensive process, and it entails complex documentation requirements. Outdated documentation systems lead to longer review cycles, increased errors, and delayed certification. The path to compliance is reliant on a level of traceability and transparency that legacy systems or manual documentation just can’t provide. PTC's ALM solution Codebeamer provides teams with visibility into the development, testing, and validation processes for their requirements, allowing for end-to-end traceability across the product lifecycle. When teams can trace requirements from a high-level vision all the way to implementation and beyond, they can continuously verify that their products meet stated requirements—ultimately keeping passengers, crew, and operators safe all while improving operational efficiency.
Streamline Your Development Process
Check out PTC’s latest eBook to learn how each template can be customized to suit your specific implementation needs.
Get Started