Anecdotal evidence indicates one can add 5% to 40% to development costs (Non-Recurring Engineering) and 0.2% to 2% to unit production costs depending on the product and intended markets. Some of these costs are:

• 'Due diligence' effort of the product safety process and compliance issues.
• Creation and maintenance of product safety and liability activities.
• More production testing and support - such as per unit end-of-line HI-POT and Ground Continuity testing.
• Periodic factory visits and audits by regulatory agencies, at the manufacturers' expense.
• Added components - e.g. to provide safety and 'fail-safe' features, redundancy, etc.
• Added safety instructions, warnings and labeling on the product and in manuals.
• Compliance testing time during development - this usually requires test, debug, design tweaking and retest cycles¹⁶.
• Regulations and US agencies are becoming more concerned about quality, performance and usability in addition to safety - this can add some cost in compliance.

But all this buys you:

• Good will in the markets:
  • Competitive advantage.
  • Enhanced sales because of trust (think J.D. Powers & Associates).
  • A reputation for being a consumer safety conscious manufacturer.
• An inherently safe product based on attention to design and validation.
• A higher quality product, thus less returns, repair - service costs
• Ability to reach wider markets; e.g. government and industrial where demonstrating safety is paramount.
• More predictable and affordable warranties.
• Pressure to consider safety aspects you might otherwise forget or not even be aware of.
• Selection of appropriate safety standards.
• A formal record of your product safety "due diligence", which is extremely valuable should any problems occur with your product within the market place.
• Reasonable product Liability Prevention and the ability to maximally defend yourself should problems arise.

---

¹⁶ Product testing? Why? ...and How Much?