Secure Development Lifecycle with Polarion: Sandvik’s journey

At Taipuva Polarion Days 2026, Sandvik shared how they are building a Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) and integrating cybersecurity into product development. As systems become more connected, cybersecurity is becoming a critical part of safety, operations, and compliance.

Key insights from the presentation

Sandvik highlighted three key themes that are shaping modern product development:

• Cybersecurity & safety are connected
  As systems become more connected, cyber threats can directly result in real-world safety incidents
• Structured SDL is essential
  Security needs to be built into requirements, development, and testing — not added later
• Traceability is critical
  Clear visibility across requirements, testing, and validation supports both quality and compliance

Together, these form the foundation for building secure and reliable products in increasingly complex environments.

The role of Polarion

Polarion plays a central role in enabling this approach by:

• Supporting structured cybersecurity processes across teams
• Providing end-to-end traceability throughout development
• Helping organisations prepare for audits and certification

This allows teams to better manage complexity while ensuring that security and compliance requirements are met.

From approach to practice

Sandvik’s presentation also showed how SDL is implemented in practice:

• Processes are introduced and tested through pilot projects
• Work is integrated into existing development environments
• Documentation and traceability support certification and audits

This ensures that cybersecurity is not just a concept, but a working part of everyday engineering.