This paper presents guidelines for integrating safety into the product development process in construction industry. As a basis for developing the guidelines the following data were collected: interviews with seven designers from construction industry; an interview with a designer of air conditioners; an exploratory study of integration of safety into product development. Even though the interviews have pointed out that the integration is still adopted to a minor extent in construction, there were evidences that this reality might be changed. Designers both usually took into account safety of end users and were likely to welcome a regulation that established safety into design as a mandatory requirement, similarly to what occurs in the European Union. For practical purposes, it is suggested that the integration be based on the adoption of the risk management cycle throughout all stages of the product development process as well as on databases that comprise measures for safe design fitted to Brazilian reality. Also, there is plenty of room for considering safety as one further dimension in the existing techniques and models of product development.
Safety; product development; risk management; construction
