Challenges in Functional Modelling for Safety and Risk Analysis

Safety and risk analysis in a system’s life cycle is a core activity to ensure a sound safety basis for the system. It is a type of problem-solving process. The functional value of a solution is indispensable for the understanding of its being a solution. It is also important for defining failures and their possible hazardous consequences. The functional modelling is motivated for development and has also been applied to safety and risk analysis in different industrial domains. However, the research on functional modelling for safety and risk analysis is not that widespread. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to this area for researchers and point out the challenges in functional modelling for safety and risk analysis. First, it explains why functional modelling is needed for safety and risk analysis, including their challenges. Then, a literature review is conducted for each challenge, and our proposition is summarized. It is hoped that the paper can serve its purpose of making its contribution to opening up more potential research by using functional modelling for safety and risk analysis.