"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 is not technical, it is 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
- Mandatory full compliance for every product
- Just documentation
Functional safety is about:
- Making risks visible
- Answering where, when, and how a system becomes 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" or "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 what it is not
This package is not software, and it is not hardware. This work is a methodology tailored to the product and organization, a long-term design guide and 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: an 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 and 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 where risks are thoroughly thought through and transferable 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.
mustafa.simsek@emobino.com
www.emobino.com
