An approach to solve contradiction problems for the safety integration in innovative design process R. Houssin a,b, *, A. Coulibaly b a University of Strasbourg, UFR Physique et Inge ´nierie-Campus Inge ´nierie, 15-17 rue de Mare ´chal Lefe `bvre, 67100 Strasbourg, France b LGECO : Laboratoire de Ge ´nie de la Conception, INSA Strasbourg, 24, Bd de la Victoire 67084 Strasbourg, France 1. The problem Following up our observations and studies, we note that in many production sites, some users neutralize safety equipments to improve productivity of the system. So, this may cause that any unexpected event takes place and that may cause accidents. We worked to understand why this could happen. It appears that frequently safety equipments are badly added to system and disturb the user. Because they cannot have access to some components of the system easily, users must stop the system to make safely some operations and this decreases their productivity. We analyzed many of design process and we noted that: 1. Safety is a constraint that most companies apply in the last phase of design in order to be able to market the product. In this case, the designer firstly searches a functional system and then tries to make it safe. 2. Safety is taken into account arbitrarily in the development phase of design because there are no well-defined methods to apply safety integration [1]. 3. Often safety integration is made by adding sensors, protection equipments, or by imposing to the user some procedures to protect him from hazards. Those protection equipments prevent user to have suitable accessibility and visibility to perform properly his work. 4. Often the use of procedures is long and requires stopping the system. This causes much lateness in production. To go faster and to respect his production planning, often, user neutralizes protection equipment or he does not respect procedures. That exposes him to dangerous situations that designers are indirectly responsible. So, in the range of 20–60% of accidents having at least one significant or root causes are attributed to erroneous design [2]. Safety integration in design process is modelled in Fig. 1, where, as we explain above, it is done firstly to respect Standards [3]. On one hand, this late integration (1) decreases the user accessibility and visibility because of barriers and doors, etc. (2) adds many other devices as sensors, safeguards, etc. (3) causes modifications in the system, to pass cables, etc. For example, designer has to add protection means to satisfy safety require- ments in a minimal cost and by limiting their complexity. On the other hand, these protection means can decrease the freedom of operator’s action by limiting the necessary space during the realization of his task. The disciplinary variety of stakeholders and associated viewpoints can create also several contradictions: at organizational level that may affect performances, costs, trade. Hale in [2] wrote: ‘‘It is not possible to design a plant or machine that maximizes both safety and all other performance criteria such as production.’’ He added that ‘‘not all accidents can be prevented by Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 398–406 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Available online 19 January 2011 Keywords: Innovative design Safety Productivity ‘‘Working situation’’ model Contradictions ABSTRACT 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. ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: University of Strasbourg, UFR Physique et Inge ´ nierie- Campus Inge ´ nierie, 15-17 rue de Mare ´ chal Lefe ` bvre, 67100 Strasbourg, France. E-mail addresses: remy.houssin@insa-strasbourg.fr (R. Houssin), amadou.coulibaly@insa-strasbourg.fr (A. Coulibaly). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers in Industry journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compind 0166-3615/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2010.12.009