Meet with Bruce Main

Vincent Goussen February 28th, 2000 Sebastien Daleyden

Meeting with Bruce Main, president of Designsafe Ann Arbor, MI, February 25, 2000

The goals of this meeting were to improve our knowledge on the company Designsafe and his works and to redefine our subject of dissertation.

About DSE…

The reason why Bruce Main chose in 1995 to create DSE was to avoid the waste of time of engineers due to liability issues. During the three first years, DSE has mainly evaluated product before their design. In 1998, he decided to develop the tool Designsafe, in order to help engineer in doing risk analysis and hazard assessment. This activity represents now 60% of the DSE wok.

DSE has about 100 users for Designsafe and more than 100 customers for advising. There is about two downloads of the demo per day, but only 15% of buyers. Even if the software helps to document safety issues, it is hard to find a company interested in the process, due to a bad knowledge or other safety habits.

The feedback of companies using Designsafe is very good, they are excited about this new process of safety through design. They are interested by the easiness to learn and to use the software. However, it is very hard to convince them to buy the software that may seem to them too wide.

Designsafe answers to the EN 1050 flowchart (EU safety norm), which is a reference in hazard analysis and risk assessment. The risk matrix used in the software comes from military requirements.

One of the ways of improvement of the software is for Designsafe engineering to develop a specific version for the specific needs of a company (as 3M, which had his own risk assessment method).

Designsafe engineering is currently thinking about the version 2 of Designsafe. About the benchmarking…

What are the goals of the benchmarking?

Evaluating the international activity regarding safety through design. Evaluating Designsafe for its suitability to the European market.

Starting point: dse has developed a fast, easy-to-use tool for engineers and safety professionals to incorporate safety through design by:  identifying hazards  prompting engineers to think about hazards which they otherwise might overlook  conducting a risk assessment for identified hazards  reducing risks in a structured method  preventing accidents and reducing liability what it is...  an engineering tool for improving product designs and processes  a systematic method for conducting a task-based safety analysis  a technique for eliminating and controlling hazards what it does...  gives designers a quick and easy tool to evaluate safety issues through design  permits quick assessment of engineer's change orders to safety issues  assists design engineers in completing a safety analysis for their products/processes  helps companies identify potential hazards and provides methods for elimination  prioritizes design activities related to risk what are the benefits...  helps user recognize hazards that might otherwise be overlooked  helps prompt remedy actions for existing hazards  fast and easy  assists in obtaining the CE mark for accessing European markets  can be updated continuously and printed out  minimizes analysis time  reduces costs  can be customized to your needs  easy method to document analyses  brainstorming tool to help identify hazards Settling Designsafe as a reference:

 30 minutes to learn the software  decrease analysis time: about a day to do it with team and few hours to identify hazards 60% of time earned with this method  cost: $995 per license $846 for National Safety Member $35 500 per sites license  possible to organize seminars in order to help society in learning safety trough design with Designsafe  ability to be customized to specific needs

Main problems detected:

 it is not well international known.  very general software not developed for specific industries.  users don’t know they can tailor the software.  available only in English.  biggest competitors are not software companies but companies that use paper and pencil approach  analysis too deep, level of details too high  features need update:  faster  easier  add more information  more flexibility – attached files  comparison of files  FMEA components

What can be the criteria of our Benchmarking?

 Specific field of activity:  Software  Food (HACCP)  Chemical and environment  Medical  Mechanical  Robotic  Ergonomic  Aeronautic  Military  Semi-conductor

 Help for the compliance with International safety standard (EU, Australia, and East market…)  Communication, how can Designsafe be better known around the world. (Safety website, search engine, key words…)  Languages  Information

 Ease of use: how long does it takes to be engaged in?  Cost of the product  Interface: does the product guide the user through the analysis or not?  Effectiveness  Package deal: training, seminar

How can we get our information?

 Internet  Relation with safety consultants, or safety organizations.  Study of competitors  Non US downloader survey  French design office survey  European trade organization survey  What is the satisfaction level of the customers

What are our next goals :

 Keep on benchmarking: comparison, evaluation, other safety methods, fields of activity (actual industry safety standard like robot safety standard)  Recommendations on where to focus efforts for new version of Designsafe Features needed that aren’t in other tools  What’s going on in Europe? Safety through design How people use EN1050 finding data

About the translation…

We are waiting for the source files to start the translation. It seems that Designsafe in his second version is going to be available in two languages, English and French.

As a conclusion, we can say that this meeting was very helpful for us, as far as our subject is concerned. We have a prettier idea of what is expected and we are going to keep on working that way.