Crossing the bridge between automotive SPICE Assessments and Functional Safety Audits

The term “assessment” is used in different ways in the automotive SPICE and functional safety disciplines. Both topics are relevant to many automotive projects, but they serve different purposes and have different meanings. The main thing that sets the Automotive SPICE Assessment and the Functional Safety Assessment apart is their purpose. The purpose of the Automotive SPICE Assessment is to evaluate the development processes performed to determine the capability of those processes and infer the quality of their outcomes. The purpose of the Functional Safety Assessment is to determine that the development outcome has adequately addressed the avoidance of harm for its users and bystanders, caused by system internal failures. We shouldn’t forget about the functional safety audit, which is part of the functional safety assessment. This audit looks at the processes performed by the project, which is comparable to the Automotive SPICE Assessment. This presentation compares all three, in terms of purpose, scope, motivation, conduct, result, and aftermath.

Short biography

After completing his Master of Electrical Engineering at Delft University, Hendrik first embarked on an entrepreneurial journey as an inventor. Once the inventions were complete and patents filed, Hendrik refocused his attention on functional safety as he moved straight into peer reviews of a DAL A aerospace engine control software (FADEC). This is now more than 13 years ago. Since that time, his professional focus has remained on functional safety. After aerospace came automotive, ensuring the functional safety for a number of items at a German OEM. Subsequently, Hendrik joined the ranks of the functional safety assessors at TÜV SÜD, at one of its DAkkS-accredited inspection bodies. His main focus industry remained automotive, despite excursions to the railway and agricultural domains. As part of his role at TÜV SÜD, Hendrik was responsible for giving training seminars in the FSCP certification program. In 2019, Hendrik founded Munich Safety GmbH with the objective of providing highly specialized services for automotive functional safety in accordance with ISO 26262. As part of this initiative, he is continuing to deliver modern first-class training programs with the aim of providing the most effective, flexible, and comprehensive training for automotive functional safety. Hendrik strongly believes that proper quality management is the basis for functional safety, and therefore became principal Automotive SPICE Assessor to supplement his skills in asssessing projects. He is member of the advisory board of iNTACS e.V. and founded the intacs working group functional safety in 2022.