🚦 FUNCTIONAL SAFETY IN BATTERY SYSTEMS
- Mustafa S.
- Jan 1
- 3 min read
“IT WORKS” IS NOT ENOUGH. RISKS MUST BE MANAGED CONSCIOUSLY.
Battery systems contain high energy.This is not a minor technical detail, it is an engineering reality directly linked to human health and life.
Yet across many SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED COMPANIES, functional safety in battery systems is still treated as a secondary topic.
Instead of being a natural layer of product development, it is often postponed, unclear, or never fully owned by the organization.
🔍 THE REAL ISSUE: NOT TECHNICAL, BUT MINDSET
A commonly observed approach looks like this:
✅ The product works, do not touch it
✅ Regulations do not explicitly require it
✅ Certification is not requested
At first glance, this may seem pragmatic.But the critical truth is simple:
⚠️ A system working does NOT mean its risks are managed.
This mindset often SOLVES TODAY’S PROBLEM.If you are lucky, it may carry you forward for a while. But it is not a conscious, defensible engineering approach.
This becomes especially critical in systems involving:
🔋 BMS and battery systems
⚙️ High energy density
🧩 Complex hardware–software interaction
🔥 Multiple failure scenarios
Without clearly understanding where, when, and how risks emerge, product development remains fragile.
🧠 WHAT FUNCTIONAL SAFETY IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT
Functional safety is:
❌ Not a certification goal
❌ Not mandatory full compliance for every product
❌ Not just documentation
Functional safety is about:
✅ Making risks visible
✅ Answering “where, when, and how does it become hazardous?”
✅ Making decisions based on engineering arguments, not intuition
✅ Anchoring engineering knowledge in the organization, not individuals
In short, functional safety is an ENGINEERING CULTURE.
⏱️ A REALISTIC FACT: ISO 26262 IS NOT EASY
Implementing ISO 26262 end-to-end:
⏳ Takes time
📄 Requires extensive documentation
🛠️ Demands disciplined engineering effort
📈 Becomes increasingly costly as ASIL levels rise
As a result, many teams get stuck between two extremes:
🔹 “Let’s not start at all”
🔹 “Full compliance is too complex and expensive”
Reality, however, is not limited to these two options.
🧭 WHY eMOBINO DESIGNED THE FUNCTIONAL SAFETY STARTER PACKAGE
The most common gap we see is clear:Many teams DO NOT KNOW WHERE TO START.
Functional safety is either postponed indefinitely or addressed in fragmented, uncontrolled ways. What is needed instead is a starting point that is:
✔ Manageable
✔ Tailored to the organization
✔ Valuable in the long term
✔ Independent of specific individuals
This is exactly why the FUNCTIONAL SAFETY STARTER PACKAGE was designed.
📦 WHAT THIS WORK IS (AND IS NOT)
This package is:
❌ Not software
❌ Not hardware
This work is:
✔ A METHODOLOGY tailored to the product and organization
✔ A long-term DESIGN GUIDE
✔ A reusable ENGINEERING REFERENCE within the organization
The goal is not to limit functional safety to a single project, but to embed it into the company’s engineering mindset.
🧩 SCOPE: ISO 26262 REFERENCE STARTER SET
This work covers ISO 26262 sections 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 4.5, and 4.6, including:
🧱 System Architecture Definition
🔋 BMS Architecture Definition
🔎 Architecture Review
🧾 Item Definition
🌳 Function Tree & Failure Tree
⚠️ Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment - HARA
🎯 Safety Goals Definition (including ASIL levels)
🛡️ BMS Technical Safety Architecture
🧪 BMS System FMEA
📋 Functional Safety Concept Review
📎 BMS System Functional Safety Requirements
✅ BMS Functional Safety Requirements Review
🎯 THE OBJECTIVE
The objective is not to achieve ASIL-D certification on day one.
IT IS:
🔋 To elevate engineering maturity in battery systems and🧠 BUILD A PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT APPROACH WHERERISKS ARE THOROUGHLY THOUGHT THROUGH ANDTRANSFERABLE TO THE FUTURE.
Once this foundation is in place, teams can progress step by step toward full end-to-end functional safety, if and when needed.
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