A method for quantitative measurement of safety culture based on ISO 26262

摘要

Safety culture is the collective attitude of members of an organization regarding safety issues: awareness, communication, knowledge, etc. In the automotive industry, specifically in its Research and Development (R&D) environments, safety culture is relatively new. Recent incidents related to functional safety issues in automotive software and hardware, call for the improvement of safety culture in R&D environments. In ISO 26262 safety culture is identified as a requirement for safety management. Improving on safety culture is essential for using this standard as a way of working. In this article, a method for measuring the safety culture in accordance with ISO 26262 is introduced. We quantified safety culture based on participants' response to a questionnaire. This quantification is done by measuring several contributing factors such as management commitment, awareness, flow of information, knowledge and skills. For each contributing factor, some survey items are designed and verified by external experts ' reviews. The final questions are chosen from the survey items based on experts' feedback. Finally, the survey is performed at the Department of Integrated Vehicle Safety (IVS) of TNO, an R&D environment. An indication of current status of safety culture was obtained; furthermore, the survey provided new insights into improvement points for the IVS Department.