“The conception and initial design phase of a product is of great importance because the safety factors that minimise the risk of accidents and injuries to the child are part of this phase. Having the tools necessary for evaluating the product in the prototype phase will enable the manufacturer to verify the various design options, identifying safety anomalies and thereby making the product safe before passing to production. In this way, Spanish manufacturers can stay ahead in the market with their already safe new designs and so improve their competitiveness. In this sense, rapid manufacturing technologies can provide the best tools for such evaluation, becoming an alternative that merits investigation. Thus, the overall objective of the project is to validate the use of rapid manufacturing technologies for component development enabling safety evaluation of children’s products in the design phase.”

Start date: June 2008