Product Safety Consultations
Helping clients make decisions about safety, warnings, and human factors.
Since our founding in 1994, our team of experts has helped clients navigate unique challenges with confidence. For a small sample of the kinds of inquiries that we have fielded, expand each category below:
Hazard Analysis, Risk Assessment and Safety Decisions
Developing Safety Information
Safety Symbols
Standards and Regulatory Issues
Safety Information in Manuals
Online and Electronic Safety Information
- Our product is novel and innovative–there is nothing else like it on the market. We don’t see any applicable safety standards. Can you help us identify potential safety issues and develop appropriate warnings?
- Our engineers are good at identifying potential product failures, but they are not as comfortable evaluating risks or identifying potential user errors and misuses. Can you help them?
- We have several ideas for how to address a product safety issue. Can you help us decide between various design and warning options?
- For certain applications, special equipment is needed to use our product safely. Can you help us decide whether to make that equipment standard or optional?
Developing Safety Information
- People in many different roles interact with our product, such as purchasers, installers, users, maintenance staff, etc. Can you help us communicate appropriate safety information to different audiences?
- We produce many products and our technical writers and engineers are frequently asked to create warnings. Can you train our staff to help them feel better equipped for this task?
- Creating warnings is time-consuming and difficult for our company. Can you help us develop tools and processes to design warnings more efficiently?
- Our new product launch ran into trouble at the last minute because the warnings weren’t finished. Can you help us include more warnings development activities earlier in the new product development process, so we can reduce disruptions next time?
- Our competitors provide a warning that we don’t. Can you help us determine if we need one too?
Safety Symbols
- Our product is small. Can you help us make symbols to communicate safety messages in a limited space?
- Our product is sold worldwide. Can you help us determine if safety symbols can reduce or eliminate the need for multiple-language translation of safety messages on our product labels?
- We have safety symbols that we like. Can you test them in accordance with American and International standards?
- Can you help us use safety symbols with text to make a label that can be easily understood and looks appealing?
Standards and Regulatory Issues
- We need to answer an inquiry from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Can you help us present technical safety information to regulators?
- Our industry group would like to develop standard safety messages. Can you help our company representatives navigate this process?
- A lot of my customers are in the U.S., but we also sell internationally. How can I make my product safety labels conform with both ANSI Z535.4 and ISO 3864-2?
Safety Information in Manuals
- We have a lot of safety messages in our manual. Can you help us prioritize or reorganize it?
- Our product requires professional installation. Can you help us write instructions telling users how to check whether it is properly installed?
- Can you help us create manuals that conform with ANSI Z535.6?
Online and Electronic Safety Information
- We’re adding safety information to our website. Does ANSI Z535 apply? How should it be formatted?
- My product users may not have the manual with them. How can they be directed to more information online?
- We sell through online retailers, like Amazon. How should we provide safety information through this channel?
- How do I include safety information in product videos?
- We are active on social media. Can you help us develop policies for our social media presence to appropriately reflect our safety policies?
- Can you help us develop policies for addressing customer postings in online retailer reviews and social media?
Contact us at info@appliedsafety.com to learn how our expertise and resources might complement your team on an ongoing basis or help answer specific questions about a new or existing product.