After recalling the major industrial challenges, the article discusses the evolution of approaches and methods of risk management, dependability and safety from 1990 to 2015. Three periods can be distinguished. The first is oriented maintenance purposes. The second, given the scarcity of financial resources, is concerned with ageing management and life cycle management. Finally, the third, after the disasters of the 2000s, is a period of risk aversion and return to safety concerns. The article then explains how uncertainty is treated during these 25 years: model and propagate uncertainty, manage and analyze the uncertain data, decide in an uncertain context. The article concludes with the different actions that should be involved in the near future.
The article was presented as a keynote lecture in 51st ESReDA seminar at Clermont-Ferrand (20-21 October, 2016).