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Safety & Litigation

Product and Occupational Safety

Benchmark has extensive experience in the product and occupational safety domain, including:
  • Accident analysis and prevention
  • Hazard analysis and risk assessments (products & workplace)
  • Safety information design, development, and evaluation

Safety Information Development Process

In developing safety information, Benchmark uses a comprehensive process to systematically identify, analyze and communicate information about hazards. Such a process allows for the design and development of new safety information or to audit previously developed safety information to minimize wasted time and money, create consistency across product lines, and potentially deal more effectively with future legal issues.

Our experiences include researching and referring to applicable:

  • Codes, regulations, and standards
  • Competitor's safety information
  • Technical literature (journal articles, technical reports, & government documents)
  • Trade or industry groups & publications
  • Safety organizations & associations
  • Incident/accident data & reports
  • Medical literature
  • Warranty returns
  • Customer service complaints
  • Litigation claims
  • Subject matter experts
  • Product users

to design and develop:

  • Warning labels and signs
  • Owner's manuals
  • Product instructions
  • Product packaging
  • Safety symbols
Also, we have experience evaluating safety information for:
  • Compliance - does it conform to the appropriate regulations, standards, & company guidelines?
  • Comprehension - is it understandable?
  • Consistency - is there consistent use of language (a) within the product's system of information and (b) with competitor's products and the industry as a whole?
  • Content - does it identify the hazard, how to avoid it, and the consequences for failing to comply (if not readily inferred)?
  • Durability - will it hold up for its intended location and use?
  • Legibility - is it possible to see & read it (including symbols)?
  • Readability - is the intended user able to understand and process it?
     

Litigation Support and Expert Witness Testimony

  • Human factors and ergonomics
  • Product and occupational safety
  • Warnings and risk communication
  • Slips, trips, and falls 

      Services offered include:

    • Case facts analysis
    • Scientific and technical literature review and analysis
    • Research of codes, regulations, and standards
    • Assist with question development for opposing experts
    • Design, develop, test, and analyze new research
    • Onsite inspections
    • Preparation of affidavits and reports
    • Deposition testimony
    • Trial testimony

Our staff has published more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, proceedings, and book chapters on such diverse topics as warnings, hazard communication, risk perception, hazard analysis, decision making, wildland fire safety, team training and performance, textual format, drug and nutrition labeling, display design, usability, the Internet, older adults, data collection methods, and distance-learning. 

We have professional affiliations with the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and American Psychological Society and serve on standards development committees (ANSI Z535.3 Subcommittee). 

 


ABOUT BENCHMARK
Benchmark Research & Safety, Inc. is a human factors and ergonomics consulting firm that specializes in usability, user-centered design, product safety, warnings, expert witnessing, research (design, ethnographic, perceptual) and training. Benchmark Research & Safety, Inc. is one of the few multi-capability firms in the Northwest - headquartered in Moscow, Idaho with branch offices in Boise and Rigby, Idaho; Portland, Oregon; and Grand Junction, Colorado.