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Functional Safety is an important issue

At the end of 2011, the ISO 26262 standard - which is an adaptation of  IEC 61508 - was published as IS (International Standard) and therefore establishes a reference for the Functional Safety of electric/electronic (E/E) systems of road vehicles, covering the whole product lifecycle (for more information see this topic in the Thematic Area).

The standard is based on state-of-the-art methodologies and, in fact it is already being applied by major car makers and tier-1 component suppliers in order to protect Product Liability.

Therefore, it is necessary that all automotive companies involved in safety relevant E/E systems rapidly apply the Functional Safety methodologies and, to this end, increase their knowledge on this matter, acquire suitable test equipment and adapt their company organization.

Who is the customer

Any company in the transport sector that either develops, produces or integrates on-board E/E safety relevant systems.

Services for Company Capability Improvement

The services provided by 4S can improve the company capability to assure the Functional Safety according both to the future ISO 26262 Standard specific for automotive applications and to the more general existing IEC 61508 Standard.

Maturity Level Appraisal
Company Processes Development
Methods & Processes Audit
Training & Qualification











Maturity Level Appraisal

The future ISO 26262 requires a high level of "safety culture" and an independent Functional Safety Maturity Level Appraisal is very useful for:

  • car makers and system suppliers, as fundamental input information to check and improve their capability to have in place the right and effective processes and methods needed to manage all the Functional Safety requirements and to reduce the risks related to Product Liability
  • system suppliers to demonstrate their capability to satisfy the Functional Safety and customer requirements.

Company Process Development

The future ISO 26262 requires the definition of guidelines, reference processes, new tools and methods related to Functional Safety to cover the lifecycle of E/E onboard systems.

The main methods and tools are:

  • for design processes: Hazard Analysis, Risk Assessment, Criticality Analysis (System FMEA, FMECA, FMEDA, FTA), Verification and Validation tests based on "Fault Injection"
  • for production: Control Plan
  • for operation and service: field data collection.

Company Process Audit

The future ISO 26262 requires  Audit of the Safety Processes by an independent organization during the safety lifecycle, in case of "high risk" (ASIL D).

Personnel Training and Qualification

The future ISO 26262 requires that Functional Safety is managed by qualified personnel for specific roles: Safety Manager, Safety Specialist, Safety Assessor.

Services for Development of Products

4S provides support to develop on board systems complying with the Functional Safety requirements according both to the future ISO 26262 Standard specific for automotive applications and to the more general existing IEC 61508 Standard.

Application Support
Project Management
Performance Assessment
Testing Management











Application Support

What is the application support for Functional Safety

The development of Functional Safety is a process aimed to limit the risk related to the system within an acceptable value. Several design and verification phases are required:

  • Functional Safety Concept (e.g. System Analysis, Safety Plan, Hazard Analysis, ASIL determination, Safety Goals determination, etc.)
  • Technical Safety Concept (e.g. System Architecture definition, ASIL decomposition, definition of recovery strategies, hardware and software Safety Requirements, etc.)
  • System Integration and Verification (System Integration of subsystems and components adapted to meet specifications, verification of Hw and Sw elements by testing at different integration levels)
  • Safety Validation (i.e. testing at vehicle level to prove that the system meets the Safety Requirements)

What system information are necessary to perform the development

A complete documentation of the system is necessary:, e.g.: electrical diagrams, component characteristics, description of the system and subsystem functions, simulation models, FMECA, etc.

What tools are necessary

It is necessary to employ methodologies to support reliability analyses (e.g. FTA) and simulation systems. Furthermore, it is essential to use suitable test tools to experimentally validate the system. 4S offers such test tools.

Performance (Functional Safety) Assessment

Functional Safety Assessment is one of the confirmation measures required by the future ISO 26262, together with Safety Audits regarding the processes and Safety Reviews, which address specific safety activities.

Functional Safety Assessment is a complete evaluation of the processes and the activities performed for ensuring the Functional Safety of the product under development before SOP (Start of Production). It has to be conducted by an independent organization in the case of a high risk system (ASIL D).

4S provides all confirmation measures.

Project Management

4S can assist you to define and manage a complete project to cover all the activities required during the Functional Safety lifecycle for a specific product. Before performing such a project, 4S recommends a preliminary Maturity Level Appraisal to identify the organizational and technical readiness of your Company.

Testing Management

The future ISO 26262 requires verification and validation activities according to the "V" development model. Fault injection technique is a common practice employed in experimental testing and recommended by the Standard.

4S helps your Company to define effective and optimized test plans required for Functional Safety and other functions/characteristics of your products. Moreover, 4S provides test equipment and software tools particularly designed to support Functional Safety testing and customized for  specific applications.

Products

4S offers test equipment specifically designed to meet the validation requirements of the Standards. It has to be taken into account that for each system under development specific test equipment is needed; however this equipment is easily derived from the basic unit.

The Electric/Electronic Architectures are fundamental for vehicles

Vehicles are more and more based on electric and electronic (E/E) systems which are functionally integrated. The  E/E architectures are therefore crucial to achieve performance and functional safety requirements and cost targets.

Who is the customer

Any company in the transport sector that either develops, produces or integrates on-board E/E systems.

Services

4S provides the following services to support your Company:

Application Support
Project Management
Performance Assessment
Testing Management











The approach is a co-operation with your Company, possibly based on 4S experts collocated at the Company premises, assisting your technicians to maximize the know-how transfer to your Company for long term added value.

The support areas include advanced applications, like:

  • electric, hybrid and fuel cell propulsion systems
  • on-board control systems
  • ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems).

Application support

The 4S support covers the following tasks:

  • Functional system identification and analysis
  • Physical and logical partitioning
  • Specifications for each subsystem
  • Networking, including advanced communication systems (e.g. Flexray)
  • Definition of subsystems architectures.

The applications will be developed in compliance to specific custom or standard requirements such as Functional Safety, Electromagnetic Compatibility, environmental conditions, etc.

Performance assessment

Performance assessment is a complete evaluation of the processes and the activities performed to develop the architecture. This assessment is aimed to assure that all requirements are met.

Project management

4S can assist you to define and manage a complete project to cover all the activities required during the E/E architecture development.

Testing Management

4S can help your Company to define effective and optimized test plans required for the verification and the validation of the E/E developed architectures. Moreover, 4S can provide test equipment (see below).

Products

4S offers test equipment and software tools specifically designed to meet the validation requirements of E/E architectures and systems. This equipment can be customized to also perform complex and time consuming tests on the base of test plans, which are easily scheduled and executed with proprietary user-friendly software programs.

Product Development is a key competitive factor

For a technology based company the Product Development Process is a critical factor both to satisfy the customer expectations - in terms of quality, reliability, time, costs - and to assure a sustainable competitive advantage, so as to achieve the company profitability targets.

4S has identified basic organizational and technical guidelines to set up a fast, innovative, structured and effective Product Development process.

The resulting benefits of this approach are:

  • on-time products delivery during all the development process phases up to the product launch, fully satisfying the customer requirements
  • reduction of the project risks to not achieve the quality, reliability, timing and cost targets
  • product and process performance release phased with the customer or project planning.

Who is the client of these services

Any OEM and supplier that develops or manufactures mechanical or electric/electronic systems/components.

OEM: original equipment manufacturer

Services for Company Capability Improvement

4S provides the services listed hereafter to permanently structure the company product development process.

Maturity Level Appraisal
Company Processes Development
Methods & Processes Audit
Training & Qualification











Maturity Level Appraisal

The Appraisal performed by 4S on the Product Development process gives a picture of the “as-is” situation versus the minimum requirements for a robust management process inside your Company.

The Maturity Level reference model used by 4S is tailored to your company organization and product line to identify the critical areas to be improved.

Company Process Development

On the basis of the results of the Maturity Level Appraisal 4S can help your Company to improve and manage the organization, the processes and the relevant methods crucial for product development with reference to best practices and standards.

4S has identified as basic organizational and technical guidelines to set up an effective Product Development Process the following:

  • Customer front-end relationship
  • Benchmarking
  • Programme management
  • Integration with all primary and support company processes
  • Preventive approach
  • Structured decision-making driven process
  • Concurrent Engineering
  • Suppliers partnership
  • Product Modification Management
  • Process KPI monitoring
  • Knowledge management based on lesson learnt.

Company Process Audit

During the development of the Product Development process, 4S performs audits to monitor the implementation progress and propose corrective actions. The reference for the audits is the gaps identified in the Maturity Level Appraisal.

KPI monitoring is also continuously performed.

Personnel Training and Qualification

Training programs are performed by 4S to fill the gaps identified on the crucial Product Development activities, methods and tools to embed the best practices.

Services for Development of Products

4S can provide your Company with the services listed hereafter aimed to support the development of a product in a specific project.

Application Support
Project Management
Performance Assessment
Testing Management











The approach is a co-operation with your Company, possibly based on 4S experts collocated at the Company premises, assisting your technicians to maximize the know-how transfer to your Company for long term added value.

Application Support

4S cooperates with your Company to define, develop and monitor the Product Development Program for a specific product.

The principal tasks are:

  • Target setting and deployment
  • KPI identification and monitoring
  • Functional Analysis
  • Prevention and validation plan (D/P FMEA, Tolerance Design, Computer Aided Engineering, Design of Experiments and testing, etc.)
  • Suppliers capability evaluation and monitoring (see Suppliers Action Area)
  • Reliability Program (see Product Reliability)
  • Value Engineering
  • Design for Manufacturing
  • Design for Serviceability
  • Design for environment compatibility (recycling, materials, energy, etc.)
  • Product Functional Safety (if required, see Functional Safety)
  • RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) program (if required)
  • Risk Management
  • Identification and approval of the deliverables related to the milestones
  • Design reviews.

Performance Assessment

Performance Assessment is a complete evaluation by 4S of the Product Development process, activities and results related to a project for a specific product.

Project Management

4S helps you to define and manage a complete Product Development Program, including the related working groups (Design/Process FMEA, problem solving, etc.).

Testing Management

4S can define effective and optimized test plans required for product verification and validation.

Products: software tools

4S can provide customer tailored software tools to manage Product Development tasks for specific industry sectors, including Target Setting and Deployment, Prevention and Validation Plans, Reliability Test Plans and Data Analysis.

Reliability is more and more an important issue

A key competitive factor for your Company is to assure that all the products achieve the reliability levels in line with customers expectations.

To this purpose 4S is the partner supporting you to define and effectively manage the processes that have an impact on the Company products reliability.

Consequent benefits are: warranty cost reduction, increase of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Who is the client of these services

Any company that develops or manufactures mechanical or electric/electronic systems/components.

Services for Company Capability Improvement

4S provide the services listed hereafter focused on company processes to improve the capability to permanently achieve the reliability requirements.

Maturity Level Appraisal
Company Processes Development
Methods & Processes Audit
Training & Qualification











Maturity Level Appraisal

The Maturity Level Appraisal performed by 4S on the Product Reliability process gives a picture of the “as-is” situation versus the minimum requirements for a robust management process inside your Company that will achieve long term capability to meet the targets.
The Maturity Level reference model used by 4S is tailored to your company organization and product line to identify the critical areas to be improved.

Company Processes Development

On the basis of the results of the Maturity Level Appraisal 4S can help your Company to improve and manage the organization, the processes and the relevant methods crucial for product reliability with reference to best practices and standards, e.g.:

  • Customer front-end relationship
  • Reliability planning
  • Suppliers Reliability programmes
  • Fault prevention
  • Actual vs. target reliability estimation during the development process
  • Problem solving management
  • Reliability indicators and Risk management
  • Reliability verification and demonstration (i.e. Reliability growth)
  • Data Base implementation for Knowledge Management.

If necessary, RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) programs are developed by 4S (see Product Development Process).

Methods & Processes Audit

During the development of reliability processes and methods, 4S performs audits to monitor the implementation progress and propose corrective actions. The reference for the audits is the gaps identified in the Maturity Level Appraisal.

KPI monitoring is also continuously performed.

Training and qualification

Training programs are performed by 4S to fill the gaps identified on the crucial reliability activities, methods and tools to embed the best practices.

Services for Development of Products

4S provides your Company the services listed hereafter aimed at applying Reliability Programs to support the development of a product in a specific project.

Application Support
Project Management
Performance Assessment
Testing Management











The approach is a cooperation with your Company, possibly based on 4S experts collocated at the Company premises, assisting your technicians to maximize the know-how transfer to your Company for a long term added value.

Application support

4S cooperate with your Company to define, develop and monitor the Reliability Plans of a specific product.

The principal tasks are:

  • Target setting and deployment at system, subsystem and component level
  • Identification of the product reliability indicators
  • Failures classification
  • Definition of the Reliability Plan (activity program, methods, organization, timing)
  • Preliminary Criticality Analysis of the product concept
  • Functional analysis to identify the product characteristics critical to reliability
  • Suppliers capability evaluation and monitoring (see Suppliers Action Area)
  • Prevention Plan phased with the product development plan
  • Test Plan to cover the main design failure modes
  • D-FMEA, D-FMECA, Fault Tree Analysis management
  • Importance classification of the product characteristics
  • Process FMEA
  • Problem solving management
  • Reliability growth management
  • Reliability indicators monitoring.

These activities can be included in a RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) program, if required for a specific product (e.g. railways sector).

Performance Assessment

Performance Assessment is a complete evaluation by 4S of the reliability processes, activities and results related to a project for a specific product.

Project Management

4S help you to define and manage a complete Reliability Program, including the related working groups (Design/Process FMEA, problem solving, etc.).

Testing Management

4S can define effective and optimized test plans required for reliability verification and demonstration and manage in particular reliability growth programs, using specific software tools.

Products: software tools

4S can provide customer tailored software tools to manage reliability programs for specific industry sectors, including Target Setting and Deployment, Prevention and Validation Plans, Reliability Test Plans and Data Analysis.

Production Processes are crucial for profitability

For a technology based company the optimization of the Production Processes is a fundamental factor to satisfy the quality, reliability, time and costs requirements.

Usually the poor-quality costs can be quite high due to expensive operations such as reworking, repairing and defect recovery, especially during warranty period. Moreover, very often the corrective actions regard only the specific products affected with non conformity problems, so that they do not result in systemic solutions.

Corrective actions also often do not identify the real root causes related to the product design and production processes, so that they do not result in decisive and effective solutions.

The effective approach to improve production  processes

The maximum benefits are achieved by developing the production processes simultaneously with the product development, applying the Concurrent Engineering methods, in order to limit the variability of the product characteristics, in spite of the parameters variation of the production process (see Product Development Process).

However, regarding the production processes already operational, some effective actions can be taken to make the production processes robust, on the base of the concept to pass from product non-conformity corrections to product characteristics control up to the variability control of process parameters, taking into account the cost-benefits evaluation.

This approach follows the following scheme:

  • Identification of the critical product characteristics that should be kept under control to fully realize the main product functions
  • Assignment of the related capability targets (product characteristic tolerance to process-dependent characteristic variation ratio)
  • Process Control of the product characteristics according to the Control Plan.

More benefits are achieved with further steps regarding the process parameters:

  • Identification of the factors ("5M", i.e. machines, methods, etc.) impacting on product characteristics variability
  • Sensitivity analysis of the factors
  • Classification of the importance of the process parameters
  • Control of the process parameters according to the updated Control Plan
  • Monitoring of the long term capability of the product characteristics, to verify the process improvement achieved regarding stability (main value) and variability (variance).

The improvement implementation phase is strongly dependant on the actual process, but it is crucial to focus on the following key factors:

  • Application of structured methods, e. g. Process FMEA, DOE, Tolerance Analysis and Allocation, Problem Solving
  • Appropriate measuring systems (accuracy, repeatability, reproducibility)
  • Error-proofing techniques to limit human errors
  • Personnel competences for the key operations.

Who is the client of these services

Any manufacturing company.

Services for Company Capability Improvement

4S has identified basic organizational and technical guidelines to set up effective production processes during the Product Development according the concurrent engineering approach (see Product Development) or to improve an actual Production Process.

4S provide the services listed hereafter to permanently structure the production processes.

Maturity Level Appraisal
Company Processes Development
Methods & Processes Audit
Training & Qualification











Maturity Level Appraisal

The Maturity Level Appraisal performed by 4S on the Production Processes Management gives the picture of the “as-is” situation versus the minimum requirements to set up robust processes inside your Company.

The Maturity Level reference model used by 4S is tailored to your company organization, product line and technology to identify the critical areas to be improved.

Company Processes Development

On the basis of the results of the Maturity Level Appraisal, 4S helps your Company to improve Production Processes, following the approach briefly described in the above paragraph "The effective approach to improve production  processes".

Company Methods and Processes Audit

During the improvement phase of the Production Processes, 4S performs audits to monitor the implementation progress and propose possible corrective actions. The gaps identified in the Maturity Level Appraisal are the reference for the audits.

Personnel Training and Qualification

Training on-the-job programs are performed by 4S to fill the gaps identified for the improvement of the crucial Production Processes, to embed the best practices and assure the required competences.

Products: software tools

4S can provide customer tailored software tools to manage the optimization of the Production Processes for specific industry sectors, including Process FMEA and Control Plan.

More Articles ...

  1. Services for Suppliers Improvement
  2. Services for Company Management Systems

Action Areas

Action Areas

Services for Capability Imrpovement

Services for Product Development

Equipments & Software Tools