VisualPro
In the ASIL D Era, Meeting ISO 26262 × ASPICE at Once — the Bottleneck Is Your Safety-Analysis Work Products
Functional Safety for the Autonomous & Electrified Era — VisualPro FMEA · FTA · HARA · STPA
Product: VisualPro | For: OEMs · Suppliers · SW Developers | Date: 2026-07-22
ISO 26262ASPICE 4.0ASIL DFMEA · FTA · HARAMCP Integration
01Process Alone Will Not Pass the Assessment (TL;DR)
As autonomous driving and electrification accelerate, more systems — steering, braking, battery management — are landing at ASIL D, the most stringent automotive safety integrity level, and demand for safety analyses such as FMEA, FTA, and HARA keeps expanding with them. At the same time, OEMs now ask every project two questions at once: "How do you develop?" (ASPICE) and "How do you prove it is safe?" (ISO 26262).
The second question is where projects struggle. No matter how mature your ASPICE process is, if the work products that prove functional safety — HARA, FMEA, FTA, the safety case — are fragmented across Excel files, both assessment response and design-change propagation become bottlenecks. VisualPro manages these safety-analysis work products as a digital thread in a single database, materially reducing the burden of dual compliance.
ASPICE asks "how do you develop"; ISO 26262 asks "what proves it is safe" — VisualPro produces that proof.
02Why Now — Three Shifts in the Functional Safety Market
① More ASIL D Systems — a Structural Expansion of Analysis DemandRising Demand
Autonomous functions reduce driver controllability, and electrification brings by-wire braking and steering plus high-voltage battery systems. As a result, more systems are being rated ASIL D in HARA. ASIL D is the heaviest classification: it calls for inductive (FMEA) and deductive (FTA) analysis in combination, and quantitative hardware-metric evidence such as SPFM ≥ 99%, LFM ≥ 90%, and PMHF < 10⁻⁸/h.
② Dual Compliance Becomes the Norm — Through ASPICE 4.0Dual Audit
Where ISO 26262 focuses on the functional-safety work products of E/E systems, ASPICE assesses the maturity of the development process (CL 0–5). European OEMs check ASPICE capability from the bidding stage, and most OEMs require Level 2–3. ASPICE 4.0, released in late 2023, widened the assessment scope with new Hardware Engineering (HWE) and Machine Learning Engineering (MLE) process groups. A single project undergoing both assessments simultaneously is now the standard case.
③ The Korean Supply Chain — Level 2–3 Spreading from Hyundai & KiaSupply Chain
In Korea, ASPICE Level 2–3 requirements are spreading through the supply chain alongside the SDV (software-defined vehicle) transition led by Hyundai and Kia. Functional-safety work-product requirements are flowing down with them — beyond Tier 1 and into Tier 2 suppliers — and the burden is heaviest for suppliers without a dedicated safety organization.
03ISO 26262 vs. ASPICE — What Differs, and How?
The two standards do not compete; they apply to the same project in complement.
| Aspect | ISO 26262 | ASPICE |
|---|
| Core question | What proves safety? (work products) | How do you develop? (process) |
| Scope | Functional safety of E/E systems | SW/system development process capability |
| Rating | ASIL A–D (D most stringent) | Capability Level 0–5 (typically 2–3 required) |
| Key activities | HARA, FMEA, FTA, DFA, safety case | Requirements traceability, verification, configuration & quality management |
| Latest development | 2nd edition (2018), SOTIF (ISO 21448) | 4.0 (2023) — new HWE & MLE groups |
And the point both assessments dig into is the same: traceability — whether requirements ↔ design ↔ analysis ↔ verification are connected without breaks.
04What Grows as ASIL Rises? — the Required Safety Analyses
As the ASIL rating rises, both the range and the depth of required analyses grow. The crux is that these work products reference each other.
| Analysis | Role | Demanded as ASIL rises |
|---|
| HARA | Hazard identification; ASIL determination via S·E·C | Starting point of all safety activity — derives safety goals |
FMEA
(inductive) | Effects of component/system failures on higher-level functions | Inductive and deductive analysis combined at ASIL C/D |
FTA
(deductive) | Decomposes failure combinations from a top event; proves quantitative targets | The vehicle for proving PMHF < 10⁻⁸/h at ASIL D |
DFA ·
Safety case | Dependent-failure (common-cause) analysis; the overall safety argument | Freedom-from-interference evidence; the final assessment deliverable |
A safety goal from HARA connects to failure effects in FMEA and to top events in FTA. In an Excel-fragmented environment, every single design change forces a manual re-check of those connections.
05How Does VisualPro Support Dual Compliance?
A Single-Database Digital ThreadTraceability
Structure ↔ function ↔ failure ↔ risk ↔ countermeasure are traced 1:1 in one database. Safety goals from HARA, failure effects from FMEA, and top events from FTA are linked on one thread that synchronizes automatically on design changes — so when an assessor asks "what is the rationale behind this measure," you answer in a few clicks.
Noise-Factor Library — Proven Analysis AccelerationProven
A library of noise factors — temperature, vibration, wear — systematizes failure-cause derivation. In a real drivetrain motor DFMEA pilot, an AI agent derived 34 failures, matched 54 noise factors, and linked 25 causal-network connections entirely through conversation.
MCP-Based AI Agent IntegrationMCP
AI agents such as Claude communicate directly with VisualPro via MCP (Model Context Protocol) to perform FMEA, FTA, STPA analyses, while analysts focus on validating results. The acceleration is greatest on ASIL D programs, where analysis volume is large and changes are frequent.
Automated Korean/English Reporting — Assessment & Audit ReadyKR·EN Reports
Reports ready for functional-safety assessments and overseas OEM audits are generated directly from the analysis database, in Korean and English. Where process-side evidence management is needed, integration with our sibling product Teamer (ALM · eQMS) extends coverage to ASPICE.
06Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q1We already hold ASPICE Level 2 — do we still need separate ISO 26262 work?
Yes. An ASPICE assessment evaluates process capability only; the existence and quality of functional-safety work products — HARA, FMEA, FTA, the safety case — are examined separately in the ISO 26262 assessment. The traceability foundation both standards demand can, however, be reused: managing work products in a tool substantially reduces the dual-compliance burden.
Q2We have always done FMEA in Excel. Why do we need a tool?
ASIL D programs differ in analysis volume, change frequency, and assessment depth. In Excel, references between work products are broken, so every design change forces a manual re-check across HARA, FMEA, and FTA — and rationale-tracing questions in assessments are hard to answer on the spot. A single-database tool synchronizes those links automatically, and AI-agent integration accelerates the analysis itself.
07Get Started Now (Next Step)
ASIL D demand is growing structurally, and dual compliance is already the norm. Build your safety-analysis work-product system before the next assessment arrives — with VisualPro, a single platform carrying the methodology matured in automotive functional safety.
ASPICE for the process, VisualPro for the safety proof — the fastest route to meeting both standards at once.
VisualPro Adoption · Functional Safety Analysis
As autonomous driving and electrification accelerate, more systems — steering, braking, battery management — are landing at ASIL D, the most stringent automotive safety integrity level, and demand for safety analyses such as FMEA, FTA, and HARA keeps expanding with them. At the same time, OEMs now ask every project two questions at once: "How do you develop?" (ASPICE) and "How do you prove it is safe?" (ISO 26262).
The second question is where projects struggle. No matter how mature your ASPICE process is, if the work products that prove functional safety — HARA, FMEA, FTA, the safety case — are fragmented across Excel files, both assessment response and design-change propagation become bottlenecks. VisualPro manages these safety-analysis work products as a digital thread in a single database, materially reducing the burden of dual compliance.
The two standards do not compete; they apply to the same project in complement.
And the point both assessments dig into is the same: traceability — whether requirements ↔ design ↔ analysis ↔ verification are connected without breaks.
As the ASIL rating rises, both the range and the depth of required analyses grow. The crux is that these work products reference each other.
(inductive)
(deductive)
Safety case
A safety goal from HARA connects to failure effects in FMEA and to top events in FTA. In an Excel-fragmented environment, every single design change forces a manual re-check of those connections.
ASIL D demand is growing structurally, and dual compliance is already the norm. Build your safety-analysis work-product system before the next assessment arrives — with VisualPro, a single platform carrying the methodology matured in automotive functional safety.