Improving occupational safety and health by integration into product development

A cross-sectional case study was performed in a large company producing electro-mechanical products for industrial application. The objectives were: (i) to study the product development process and the role of key actors', (ii) to identify current practice on integrating occupational safety and health into the development process, especially the efforts and attitudes of design and production engineers', and (iii) to identify key actors'reflections on how to improve this integration.

The study was based on qualitative as well as quantitative methods including interviews, questionnaires and studies of documents. A questionnaire regarding product development tasks and occupational safety and health were distributed to 30 design and production engineers. A total of 27 completed the questionnaire corresponding to a response rate of 90 per cent.