Functional Hazard Assessment Data Linking for Accurate Safety Audits
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current model-based functional hazard assessments (FHAs) for complex products like aircraft are often manual, inconsistent, and prone to errors due to disjointed and incomplete data, which leads to inaccurate and time-consuming association and auditing processes.
Innovation Solution
An apparatus and method that associate product functions with failure conditions, hazard assessments with safety requirements, and correct errors during FHA generation, using an integrated approach to ensure data accuracy and efficiency, facilitated by an associator, organizer, error detector, and corrector within a model-based FHA analyzer system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual methods are used for functional hazard assessment, then flexibility in handling complex product requirements is maintained, but accuracy and consistency of hazard assessment data deteriorate due to human error and disjointed processes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical assessment processes with an automated computer-based system that uses processors to execute instructions for associating functions, failure conditions, hazard assessments, and safety requirements. This substitution eliminates human error while maintaining the ability to handle complex relationships through algorithmic processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary computer-based processing system that mediates between the complex product requirements and the hazard assessment output. This intermediary automatically associates and correlates data elements, reducing the complexity burden on users while ensuring accurate and consistent results through systematic processing.
2Measurement precision
If manual association and auditing processes are used, then detailed examination of each data point is possible, but time consumption increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements continuous automated processing that continuously associates functions with failure conditions, hazard assessments with failure conditions, and safety requirements with hazard assessments without interruption. This continuous automated action maintains precise data associations while dramatically reducing the time required compared to manual batch processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs self-service by automatically detecting errors, validating associations, and correcting inconsistencies without requiring manual intervention for each data point. The computer-based system autonomously executes the auditing process, ensuring precision while eliminating time-consuming manual review.
3Reliability
If comprehensive data collection is performed to ensure complete hazard assessment, then accuracy of safety analysis is improved, but data completeness and consistency deteriorate due to disjointed data sources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges previously disjointed data sources and association processes into a unified computer-based system. By consolidating the collection and correlation of functions, failure conditions, hazard assessments, and safety requirements into a single integrated processing framework, the system achieves both complete data collection and consistent data structure simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal processing system that handles multiple types of data associations (function-to-failure, hazard-to-failure, safety-requirement-to-hazard) through a single multi-functional platform. This universal approach ensures comprehensive data collection while maintaining structural consistency across all association types through standardized processing routines.
Data Source
AI summary
A model-based functional hazard assessment (FHA) is disclosed. A disclosed example apparatus for generating a model-based FHA associated with a product includes an associator to associate a function of the product to a failure condition to define a first association, and associate a hazard assessment with the failure condition to define a second association, and associate a safety requirement with the hazard assessment to define a third association. The apparatus also includes an organizer to generate the FHA based on the first, second, and third associations. Disclosed examples include automated FHA data validation capabilities.