Bodo Seifert, Principal Automotive Functional Safety Engineer and Practice Lead at TÜV Rheinland, joins Erik Reynolds to share what certification bodies actually see when companies come in for assessment.

They cover the organizational and technical red flags that assessors look for, and why good engineering practice and a formal safety case are not the same thing. Bodo draws on experience across automotive, robotics, and autonomous trucking to explain what separates companies that certify successfully from those that do not.

The conversation also gets into the shift from deterministic functional safety to AI-enabled systems. Bodo explains what ISO/TR 5469 and ISO/IEC TS 22440 mean for teams building physical AI, and why transparency and explainability remain the hardest requirements for machine learning developers to accept. They also discuss why strategic collaborations like the one between Reynolds & Moore and TÜV Rheinland matter for companies navigating certification for the first time.

Check out our work: www.reynolds-moore.com

In this episode of the Safety Third Podcast, Erik Reynolds speaks with Dr. Werner Krauss, head of the research division for automation and robotics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), where he has spent 15 years bridging academic research and real-world industrial deployment.

They cover the real engineering challenges behind deploying humanoid robots in industrial settings, drawing on Fraunhofer IPA's hands-on evaluation of the UNITREE G1 across safety, cybersecurity, clean room performance, and what those findings mean for trusting these platforms in the real world. Werner also shares what surprised his team most about these platforms, why end users are harder to design for than the robots themselves, and the incident from his own career that changed how Fraunhofer trains everyone who operates a robot.

Read the Fraunhofer IPA's 3-part series on humanoid robots in industry.

Check out our work: www.reynolds-moore.com

Erik welcomes back Josiah Rohne, Staff Systems Engineer at Fennec Engineering, to discuss ASAP, Fennec's full-lifecycle functional safety platform, and the shift from fragmented tools to a single connected workflow. ASAP connects risk assessment, requirements, design, testing, and the safety case through shared traceability, while Fennec Engineering also develops dedicated test environments for safety validation, with the results feeding back into the platform to support certification.

The conversation looks at scaling safety beyond a single owner, managing the impact of hardware and BOM changes, and why closing the gap between development and real-world validation is becoming critical. Josiah closes with a reflection on why the real measure of success in safety is often the incidents that never happen.

Fennec Engineering is part of the R&M Safety Partner Ecosystem. Reynolds & Moore is hosting a 45-minute webinar in collaboration with Fennec Engineering, Modernizing Functional Safety: Building Your Safety Case Without Spreadsheets on March 31, 10:00 AM - 10:45 CST.

Register here.

Missed Josiah's first episode? Listen here.

Check out our work: https://reynolds-moore.com/

Erik sits down with Cameron Gieda, Executive and Business Development leader at FORT Robotics, to discuss the commercial strategy required to move safety technology from lab prototypes to real-world deployment. They explore the stakeholder stack, explaining why the success of an innovation often depends more on aligning IT, finance, and operations than on the engineering itself.

Cameron breaks down the massive economic disconnect between the $700 billion spent on insurance and liability versus the relatively small investment in preventive technology. The conversation also covers the rise of humanoid robotics and why collaborative partnerships like the R&M Safety Partner Ecosystem are essential for small companies to deliver enterprise-scale solutions. Cameron closes with a high-stakes story about an autonomous vehicle demo gone wrong that illustrates the thin line between breakthrough and disaster.

More on FORT Robotics: https://www.fortrobotics.com/

Check out our work: https://reynolds-moore.com/

In this episode of Safety Third: Autonomous Revolution, Erik talks with Anita Dodia, Laboratory Manager at RMAI, about how testing, inspection, and certification are evolving for AI-enabled safety systems. They explore why traditional functional safety standards struggle with black box AI models, and what it really means to validate systems that are probabilistic, non-transparent, and shaped by complex real-world environments.

Anita explains how robustness testing, simulation, and physical validation can be used to define safe operating boundaries for physical AI. The conversation also touches on emerging standards like ISO/IEC TS 22440, along with the role of accreditation and collaboration across  safety and standards community. They discuss why integrating safety into AI system design early on, rather than treating it as a late-stage requirement, determines whether autonomous systems can realistically be tested, validated, and certified.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

More on RMAI: www.safetycert.ai

Check out our work: www.reynolds-moore.com

Erik sits down with Patrik Feth, Professor of Computer Science at International University of Applied Sciences (IU) and AI Officer at NewTec, to discuss what it actually takes to move artificial intelligence from research into real world safety critical systems. The conversation explores the “valley of death” in technology deployment and the need to bridge the gap between traditional functional safety and modern software security.

Patrik explains why the industry must move past “safety by obscurity” and the “not invented here” mindset to embrace a more collaborative, open culture. They also explore the shift from deterministic to probabilistic engineering and the cultural changes required to build truly certifiable and trustworthy autonomous systems.

Check out our work: www.reynolds-moore.com

Natalya Lopareva, co-founder and CEO of Algorized, joins Erik to talk about non-visual human sensing and why true perception goes beyond cameras for the future of robotics. From detecting breathing and heartbeats through walls to creating a real-time safety bubble around people in industrial environments, this conversation explores how machines can understand human presence through a head to head ground truth verification process.

The discussion touches on Edge AI, latency, and the transition from rescue missions to commercial robotics. Natalya also reflects on how her approach to risk and innovation was shaped by her experience racing across the Pacific Ocean, where she navigated extreme weather conditions and experienced the surreal shift of living the same day twice after crossing the time zone.

More on Algorized: https://www.algorized.com/ 

Check out our work: https://reynolds-moore.com/

In this episode, Erik Reynolds sits down with Roberta Nelson Shea, Global Technical Compliance Officer at Teradyne Robotics, covering Universal Robots and MiR, and ISO convener for TC 299, for a wide-ranging conversation on how safety evolves across robotics, automation, and emerging technologies.

Drawing on decades of experience and her role in shaping standards such as ISO TS 15066 and ISO 10218, Roberta discusses why modern safety standards focus on goals rather than prescriptions, where compliance and safety diverge, and why machines cannot interpret risk the way humans do. The conversation spans collaborative robots, legacy factory equipment, autonomous vehicles, and AI-enabled safety systems, including a candid exchange on expectations around risk and the idea that “zero” is still a number when it comes to safety outcomes.

Check out our work: https://reynolds-moore.com/

Erik talks with Jens Müller, founder and managing director of Müller & Partner Sachverständige (M&P Experts) and longtime robotics safety specialist, about how safety fits into innovation for robots, mobile systems, and emerging humanoids. They dig into why standards matter, how to think about safety from the very first concept, and what startups and investors should know about compliance if they want to scale globally. 

Along the way, Jens shares lessons from three decades in industrial automation and why safety can be a real accelerator, not a roadblock. The conversation highlights how clear guidance and a structured safety approach help teams navigate new technologies with confidence.

More on Müller & Partner Sachverständige (M&P Experts): https://mp-sachverstaendige.de/

Check out our work: https://reynolds-moore.com/

Erik talks with Ashley Weis, Senior Technical Writer and Project Coordinator at Reynolds and Moore, who also leads the company’s cybersecurity efforts. They explore how documentation, coordination, and clear communication support the safety lifecycle and help teams manage complex projects from the start.

Ashley discusses her path into safety from chemical manufacturing and shares how functional safety training, process improvement, and cybersecurity awareness shape her work across projects at Reynolds and Moore.

Check out our work: https://reynolds-moore.com/