Functional Safety Case Study: FS-US-02
Customer type: OEM EV Startup
Location: West Coast USA
Status: Ongoing (Apr 2018-current)
Summary: An EV start-up company needed support to develop and build their Functional Safety team to allow safety management and the safety lifecycle to begin, whilst they recruited their own internal resources. Over time, the work grew from focusing on safety management and planning, into a deeply technical project that saw our team both develop and manage a comprehensive whole-vehicle Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA), plus develop Functional Safety Requirements (FSRs) for all modules across powertrain, chassis, HV/LV networks, body, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and enhanced infotainment. This work , with our customer benefiting from:
- An integrated approach to Functional Safety and systems engineering for the whole vehicle that provides delivery efficiency and technical depth
- Our ability to maintain on-time product development and project delivery by kick-starting the Functional Safety lifecycle whilst the client faced recruitment challenges
- Technical transfer as they recruited, including transfer of knowledge and best practice processes, helping to quickly enable the new team to contribute to the development
- Exploiting existing, strong relationships between our team and the client’s Tier-1 suppliers allowing for quick identification of robust solutions that maintained the FSR.
- Completing systems engineering work on the vehicle with over 200 features across more than 70 sub-systems, allowing the client to keep timing on track
Description: For over two years we have had resources working with this client, the project set-up initially to allow safety management and the safety lifecycle to begin whilst the customer recruited their own internal resources.
This took longer than anticipated and as a result our team grew and adapted with the client’s needs. Our initial 1x head, grew to 3x heads and the work moved from focusing primarily on safety management and planning, into a deep technical role, both developing and managing a comprehensive, whole-vehicle Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA) and developing Functional Safety Requirements (FSRs) for all modules (powertrain, chassis, HV/LV networks, body, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and enhanced infotainment) on this novel and original EV, which has some unique on and off-highway functionality.
Different members of our team are assigned to multiple domain areas, deriving FSRs for all features owned within that domain. Our team has worked pro-actively and has had to be agile in facing the typical startup challenges associated with evolving functionality. Our responsibility has expanded, with our team performing the majority of the systems engineering work on the vehicle in order to help progress our own requirements – this is over 200 features across more than 70 sub-systems.
As a result, we have been instrumental in proposing and implementing a new vehicle platform requirements deck/structure which has led to an overall more comprehensive, modular, understandable and extensible requirements deck within the clients’ management system, preparing the foundation for future updates and new vehicle platforms.
Throughout the process of developing the FSRs deck our team has been deeply embedded with the design responsible engineers and the suppliers of various components. As a result, they have generated a comprehensive structure of Fault Trees Analysis (FTAs) for all safety goals which has been a valuable aid to systematically and robustly deriving a complete deck of FSRs.
Over time, our client has been able to hire their own Functional Safety team and a Functional Safety Manager who has been supported by our experts, helping them integrate into the organization to ensure a cohesive approach and a successful delivery.
Our team are now the longest serving members of this client’s Functional Safety team and we continue to work with them as the development transitions into detailed design, integration and verification.
Engineering team deployed:
- 3x consultants: USA
- 2x consultants: UK
Standards involved:
- ISO 26262 Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9
- ISO PAS 21448
Work products developed: hazard analysis and risk assessment (HARA), functional safety concept (FSC), technical safety concept (TSC), architectural design, fault trees (FTA), hardware architectural metrics targets/apportionment, communications guidelines, verification review reports.