ISO 26262 Launch at OEM EV Startup
A California EV OEM startup was only 18 months from launching their first vehicle and yet functional safety engineering had barely begun. While a well regarded European firm had built a vehicle-level HARA, the safety goals had not been handed to ECU teams and Functional Safety was not yet staffed. ReInnovate and a partner quickly stepped in and launched an ISO 26262 initiative involving training, risk analysis, project planning, requirement development, and coaching. The result? The vehicle launched successfully and our functional safety work continued to be used across 9 ECUs.
Ensuring Functional Safety for Core Services Across 9 ECUs
This OEM wanted to leverage the strengths of the AUTOSAR architecture such as reusability and common core services. After choosing a popular framework the program quickly started experiencing configuration, performance, and vendor support problems. The OEM responded with a quick about-face and ripped it out to build their own framework. Our consulting contract had just begun when this decision was made and we quickly turned our attention to this new initiative. We worked directly with the software architects and system engineers onsite to ensure the new framework and supporting services were functionally safe and that risks were mitigated.
But our support went beyond system architecture and functional safety. We soon realized the senior management team, which included the VP's of Engineering, did not fully understand the complexities and risks associated with automotive functional safety. We sat down with the entire engineering executive suite and did a full assessment and analysis of their current functional safety strategy and it became clear that their functional safety strategy would likely achieve poor outcomes if they continued on their path. At our recommendation, within 2 months, a Functional Safety director was hired and senior Safety Managers and Engineers were moved onto the project. The result? Their first vehicle launched with critical acclaim.
ReInnovate is proud to play a role in their success. But even more importantly, ReInnovate's ability to play a role in building a solid foundation of safety engineering at this OEM is what we're all about. Our work was integrated into the critical systems of these vehicles for years to come, and this is why we do what we do.