No matter where you go product liability is a strong and ever-present force in the markets.

This has been a lot to chew on, but a technical manager does need to understand the complexity of the product safety process, if not the details, in order to grasp the importance of designing and producing safe products.

To begin to decide where your product fits into this process start by thinking about the following 'Product Safety Canons'.

• Making a safe product is the ethical thing to do. Take the viewpoint that your product will comply by testing and not ultimately by litigation.
• If you make safety claims then there must be a reason for doing so. List the reasons and consider them carefully.
• Most likely your product will come under one safety law or another, so don't try to find a way around it, especially if you are targeting multiple markets and types of customers.
• Designing for safety compliance most always enhances product reliability, quality, acceptability and competitive posture.
• Develop and formalize a Safety Philosophy (e.g. a Quality manual). This will take minimal time, but greatly enhance your product's marketability and your company's safety position.
• Development of new products, new technologies and uses of them are evolving at a far more rapid pace than are regulatory laws and standards. But that does not mean you can skirt existing laws and demands.
• NEVER, EVER make a safety claim and then do nothing about it. "Saying it don't make it true… and anyways it'll jus' bite you sumpin' awful in the e-a-nd if you do."¹¹
• Compliance to quality standards, such as ISO/QS-9000, TQM, and others, does not necessarily mean your product is safe.
  

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  ¹¹ Festus Haggen, Gunsmoke^TM