Organizational interfaces

The standard requires systems to be in place to ensure management of appropriate activities during concept development, prototype, and production according to customer advanced product quality planning and control plan manual or project management manual. 

The standard requires a system in place, but what would constitute such a system The organization maintains its line and staff departments and allocates staff to each product. Where the products of the organization cover several ranges it is often practical to divide the staff into divisions, each equipped with its own set of disciplines. Such a system would include  

Policies that govern the allocation of work to the divisions 

Job descriptions for each role stating responsibilities, authority, and accountability 

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The standard requires that if a project management approach is used, a project manager and project team be assigned, that appropriate resources be allocated, and any special responsibilities and organizational interfaces be defined. 

The standard requires that organizational interfaces between different groups which input to the design process be identified and the necessary information documented. 

Technical interfaces and organizational interfaces are often inseparable as the detail specification may need to be written around a particular supplier. However, within each development specification the technical interfaces between systems, subsystems, equip-... 

This allows to transfer the data to the cooperation partner. If he supports the same - or a matching - domain model, the information can directly be used there. Otherwise, a transformation into some proprietary format, a generic or specific XML representation, or a structured textual form (e.g. HTML) can be done. The information itself can be transferred via (secured) electronic mail, or it can be accessed via the inter-organizational interfaces of the PDW which are based on web services and web pages. 

Clement, A., and Gotiieb, C. C. (1988), Evaluation of an Organizational Interface The New Business Department at a Large Insurance Firm, in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work A Book of Readings, I. Greif, Ed., Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, CA, pp. 609-621. 

Organizational interfaces may pose other problems. When management does not take responsibility for decision making in the process, functional and system safety groups may be at odds with each other. Management perception is another difficulty. System-safety concepts are more abstract than those in many other disciplines. Therefore, it is important for the safety professional to structure the program so its impact is clear. 

The cube structure of Nancy G. Leveson is no longer discussed in this book. Only the product technical viewpoint is further considered. The organizational stmcture or the viewpoint of customers or suppliers— those are considered in the product planning, project planning and determination of organizational interfaces. However, these aspects form the basis for the planning of safety activities in the project safety plan as a derivation of the safety lifecycle (compare to ISO 26262, part 2, chapter 6.4.3, Planning and coordination of the safety activities ). 

Besides the safety analyses and tests, more and more verifications are necessary for the determinations of the safety maturity for the product under development. At each organizational interfaces and all horizontal interfaces as well as the in between elements, all characteristics should be verified at the end of the development. In general verification could show the fulfillment of requirements, from a methodology point of view you only get answer if the targets or goals are fulfilled could be only shown by validation. The activity to validate the correctness of requirements, by evaluating higher level requirements or constraints to their correct derivation to lower level requirements called ISO 26262 verification . 

How and in what order these elements should be integrated rather depends mosdy on organizational interfaces or availability of the elements than the technical aspects. Integration should be accompanied by continues verifications and adequate tests to confirm the fulfilment of the given requirements for the relevant horizontal level of abstraction. 

Also ISO 26262 sees 3 methods of grouping, but it is more considered that these groups should be applied within the same level of abstraction and depending on organizational interfaces. ISO 26262 defines the following requirements ... 

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