design safety engineering, inc. was founded in 1995 by Bruce Main based on research conducted regarding what design engineers know and do about safety. The research found that the current methods design engineers use to incorporate safety in design are limited. More details about the research our publications list. Mr. Main founded design safety engineering to assist engineers and manufacturers to better include safety through design.

design safety engineering, inc. specializes in the process of addressing safety through design. We bring a safety perspective and expertise to manufacturers' engineering design processes. Our objective is not to check your designers' calculations or analyses. We concentrate on safety areas which are often overlooked. We are comfortable working in the gray areas of safety which government regulations and industry standards do not address. Our main goal is to eliminate hazards through design.

design safety combines two engineering disciplines: engineering design and safety engineering. It is an approach to safety that relies heavily on engineering controls rather than employee behavior interventions such as warnings, training or personal protective equipment. The design safety approach incorporates safety in the design process from preliminary through final design, and assists the engineer in considering possible hazards for a product or process through its entire life cycle.

The framework under which design safety engineering develops its remedies for product and process hazards is based upon the accepted hazard hierarchy below:

HAZARD HIERARCHY

• Eliminate hazards through the design
• Protect or guard against the hazard
• Warn the user about the hazard
• Train the user(s) to avoid the hazard
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Eliminating potential hazards before they reach the user is always optimum. Through design evaluations, safety analyses, and proprietary engineering tools such as designsafe®, we strive to eliminate potential safety problems early in the design process. However, eliminating all hazards by design is often not feasible. In these cases, design safety engineering works with your designers to minimize risks through effective guarding systems, warnings and training information.

Safety Analyses
We use state-of-the-art methods to incorporate safety into product designs and tailor them to each project. We use a variety of engineering design and safety engineering techniques tailored to the needs of the particular client to identify and minimize potential hazards.

Design Evaluations
products: industrial products, commercial products, and consumer products
processes: industrial processes, manufacturing facilities, and assembly facilities

Accident Reconstruction
design safety engineering also conducts investigations to reconstruct the events surrounding an accident. By applying engineering tools we are able to identify what happened and why. The primary motivation for implementing design safety is the desire to protect users from harm. But there are other benefits to incorporating design safety into the design process.

Cost
Addressing hazards before they can cause injury, illness or damage eliminates medical, worker compensation, lost time, and other costs.

Competition
Safety is a marketable issue. In addition, design safety is often a source of product innovation.

International efforts
International advances such as the CE Mark and the complexities of multiple languages in global markets are further increasing the attractiveness of safety by design.

Legal pressures
Design safety measures can reduce liability risks.
Safety can be done anytime. Addressing safety issues early in the design process is:

• easier.
• cheaper.
• better.
• more effective.

professional affiliations
dse is professionally active through the following affiliations:

• Institute for Safety Through Design (ISTD), Advisory
• Committee member
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
• American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE)
• National Safety Council (NSC)
• ANSI B11 Technical Report #3 Committee drafting a risk
• assessment procedure for the machine tool industry
• Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME)
• Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
• National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
• American Library Association (ALA)

publications & presentations
dse staff has published and presented over 30 publications in the areas of

• mechanical design
• design safety
• product safety
• recreational boating
• accident reconstruction
• combustible/flammable product fires
• Institute for Safety Through Design

Click here for a listing of dse publications.

dse staff also serve as reviewers to the SAE Accident Reconstruction sessions. dse staff writes the quarterly newsletter for the Institute for Safety Through Design.