Societal design: An ethical and economic construct for new product developmen

This document represents a different viewpoint in how a designer should approach the design of a product. This approach breaks with the traditional method of only addressing functionality and the ability to manufacture the product by introducing several practical considerations having to do with the cost to maintain the product over its useful life (life cycle cost) and the economic impact of product liability lawsuits on these life cycle costs. It also introduces the theory that the ethical basis for the acceptability of a design traces back to the society's risk expectation for engineered products.;A review of the ninety-eight product liability lawsuit settlements did not reveal any substantial effort to interrelate these disparate views of design philosophy, nor that risk expectations for products stem from the ethics basis established by society or that the result of not meeting these expectations is a recourse to use the legal system. It shows that the effects of users taking recourse to the legal system can be softened if the designer uses "due care"; "due care" can be defined as using available state of the art design tools such as rapid prototyping and economic analysis techniques.;Data used in this research consisted of an exhaustive review of liability lawsuit settlements, and a detailed review of the life cycle costs of a commercial commuter passenger aircraft, the Metroliner III, as a typical example. The results indicate a very definite relationship between the life cycle cost of a product and the liability lawsuit award fees. It also shows that use of modern rapid prototyping techniques, such as stereolithography, have a very definite promise in reducing liability lawsuit risk to both the designer and the manufacturer of products. Additionally, it indicates that use of rapid prototyping techniques actually reduces life cycle costs of the product by about seven percent.