Tier 1 HV Inverter manufacturer

Situation:

A leading Tier 1 HV Inverter manufacturer contacts 3SK to develop Technical Safety Concept for their next generation Power Inverter. At the time 3SK was contacted, Hardware was in the process of being designed and software was not designed or coded. 3SK was requested to deliver TSC at compressed time scales in order to firm up the hardware design.

Approach:

From the onset of the TSC, it was clear that the customer didn’t have the relevant inputs (System Architecture) or had quality issues with FSC and Safety Goals. 3SK took a pragmatic approach by working with the Systems Engineering team to create a system functional design along with key interface and requirements.

This reference architecture was baselined and used as inputs to Safety Analyses. The FSC and Safety Goals were reworked in minimum time by working with the Safety / Systems Engineering team and baselined.

Once the Safety Goals / FSC and System Architecture were in place, 3SK took a Sprint approach to focus on grouping Safety goals with a similar theme and addressing them together in a Sprint. Each Sprint was 6 weeks long, with touch points every week with the customer to report progress and review outcomes. This approach gave confidence that the outcomes are in line with expectation and Sprint learning was carried out at the end of each Sprint.

1. 3SK completed the TSC on time with a high level of quality
2. 3SK developed the complete safety architecture of the product
3. The Client benefited from 3SK’s skillset to develop the Software and Hardware architecture.
4. Verification of the TSC was conducted through simulation to prove the effectiveness of the safety mechanism.

Outcomes:

1. Processes for TSC development based on ISO 26262 Part 4.
2. Technical Safety Requirements – Cascaded to all system elements, with traceability
3. Fault Tree (in reliability workbench format) and Safety Analyses (in MS Excel).
4. Software and Hardware architecture.

Value Add:

• Our pragmatic approach kept costs low by identifying the best way to meet a Safety requirement.
• The Client was provided high quality technical work with clear traceability for ease of understanding.
• The Client was provided documentation on design decisions and recommended system architecture to achieve the needs of Safety Goals.
• The iterative approach broke the project execution into multiple Sprints.
• The Client was provided clarity in project management communication and transparency on progress and roadblocks.

Customer Feedback:

Project leader: “One of the best quality safety work seen in industry”.