HARA

The ISO 26262-3 process of evaluating a system for its hazards, and ranking the hazards on a severity scale, is a powerful analysis tool used by Dana. The HARA, or hazard analysis and risk assessment, is a process commonly found in ISO 26262 based projects. Even for non-ISO 26262 projects, the HARA process is an effective systems engineering analysis technique to ensure functional safety.

The basis of the HARA is to identify all the potential hazards and categorize them according to their severity, probability, and controllability. The HARA focuses on vehicle-level hazards that have a “human” impact and are largely implementation-independent. For example, the unintended application of brakes at highway speed is a significant hazard regardless of what failures might cause that unintended event.

A HARA is a standardized process for evaluating failures (such as unintended braking) in combination with situations (on a highway vs in a parking lot) to assign a rating of overall severity to the hazard. ISO 26262 codifies this as the Automotive Safety Integrity Level.

Although a HARA is performed at a vehicle level and Dana normally expects the HARA to be provided by the vehicle integrator, we have performed and supported HARA for several programs and can support or review HARA activities.