Functional Safety ISO 26262

How can LHP help you achieve functional safety ISO 26262?

The industry is already full of vehicles with advanced technology and capabilities and will only increase with the fast-paced growth and consumer interest in autonomous vehicles (AVs) and electric vehicles (EVs). In order to guarantee product functional safety, organizations have to be proactive in complying to functional safety standards such as ISO 26262, rather than reactive.

What better way to achieve product functional safety than with a functional safety consulting firm specializing in functional safety implementation in embedded systems. Organizations are most concerned with the chance of malfunctions in electrical and electronic that could result in human fatalities, significant warranty costs, and/or product recalls.

At LHP Engineering Solutions, we have noticed some themes around functional safety, specifically within the industry. Such themes reflect the important aspects that organizations should consider before risking financial loss by trying to blindly comply with functional safety ISO 26262. 

Integrating Safety Implementation

The Five Main Considerations for Complying with Functional Safety ISO 26262

1. There Is a Paradigm Shift Occurring– The slow but steady evolution of AVs is expected to effectively translate what used to be a machine used to transport people into a safety-critical device. Instead of simply following this functional safety standard, the entire lifecycle needs to be considered. This is an aspect that organizations and consumers must understand and accept.
2. Companies Must Develop Strong Safety Cultures– One requirement within the ISO 26262 document states that organizations must develop a safety culture. As the importance of having a safety culture is largely known and adopted by many different organizations already, ISO 26262 adds a layer of complexity to the definition. For a vehicle to become a safety-critical product, companies must develop and stick to strong safety cultures when implementing functional safety.
3. Executive-Level Awareness – It is only natural to follow the importance of safety culture with the topic of executive awareness. Unfortunately, it is common for organizations to get RFQ’s with functional safety required. This leaves engineering organizations—well below the executive level in some cases—attempting functional safety implementation, which creates a liability issue. The visibility should be just as high at an executive level. Although it is lacking right now, executive awareness is a critical part of understanding functional safety.
4. Defending Decisions and Following Processes –The current functional safety standards are available. There are multiple standards with ISO 26262 being the primary one. These standards include functional safety implementation guidelines and recommendations. Your organization should decide how to implement functional safety in the most efficient way possible. There are hundreds of decisions along the way that could cost millions of dollars regarding how engineers are going to do their jobs, such as the following:

• How far and with which sections is the engineering organization going to comply?
• Which recommendations does the organization take into consideration?
• Which recommendations are left behind?
• How does the company defend those decisions?
• What is the level at which software engineers are producing quality code? 
• Are processes being followed and audited? 
• Are safety culture and training procedures being followed?
   
  Having a quality assurance organization within the engineering organization is particularly important within functional safety. 
  
  The safety-critical application design comes down to this: can your organization defend the decisions made, and are processes that were laid out being followed? Finding an optimal solution is a matter of experience. Include the experience of a consulting firm, like LHP Engineering Solutions, which focuses highly on functional safety implementation. Without this experience, organizations are operating blindfolded. 
  
  Here at LHP, we believe that over time, vehicles will become more safety-critical—carrying more people with less human intervention, creating a higher potential for harm. The engineering quality assurance involved with implementing product functional safety will become one of the most important aspects that will help organizations grow and succeed.