An approach to solve contradiction problems for the safety integration in innovative design process

Improving product behavioral performance in design process needs an innovative approach to integrate simultaneously most of the trades (safety, reliability, maintainability, etc.). Currently, safety integration is done in the latest phase of design process, to respect safety directives. This late integration causes some contradictions between productivity and safety. These contradictions could be related to technical and organizational problems. This paper proposes an innovative approach that aims to eliminate these contradictions in order to improve product performance in the use situations. This approach is based on 4 steps: systemic safety integration using Working situation model, taking into account the requirements of safety directives and standards; identifying the contradiction resulting from designer's choices and finally resolving these contradictions using adapted methods like TRIZ. An application case is outlined in off-set industry, to show the applicability and usefulness of our approach.