Embedded: Technical Answers

General safety is about protecting people (operators and bystanders) from harm caused by products, machines and equipment. This can involve explosion protection, protection from high voltages, fire protection, etc.

Functional safety is a further subcategory of safety where the damage does not come from the "side effects" of the product as above, but from its faulty function, hence functional safety. E.g. it is about that that a vehicle does not simply drive off, that a display shows the real value of e.g. a speed of the vehicle or the tank content of an airplane or that an emergency stop button really switches off the machine.

When you first start dealing with notified bodies, some developers wonder why they only tell you that something is not good, but do not tell you how they could do it better. Is this malice? Do they just not know?

The reason is that notified bodies are responsible for acting as independent third parties to assess the solution. If they were to propose solutions themselves, they would be taking themselves out of the game. Because now they would have to assess their own solution, so they would no longer be independent third parties.

This is the advantage, by the way, if you involve us additionally for functioanl safety projects. We cannot replace the notified body in terms of independence and legal framework, but we can assess your solution and suggest improvements at the same time.