An integral safety approach for design of high risk products and systems

To make the world a safer place while adapting high-end technologies, engineers have to address societal concerns about the safety of emerging high-tech systems. While adapting services provided by technology, people concern about their safety. It seems that engineers are struggling to control the fast-growing technology. From another perspective, the safety toolbox seems to be outdated as there are issues that cannot be addressed by inherited nature of the commonly used tools. As systems become more complex and more autonomous, the safety-toolbox requires improvements to catch up new developments. This paper sheds light on societal concerns on safety issues, discusses commonly practiced design methods for dealing with safety, and suggests an integral safety approach. While the application range of this subject is indeed very broad, this study keeps its focus on the industrial design discipline