Integration of industry 4.0 and assessment model for product safety

Assessment models are widely applied in new product development process in manufacturing industries to identify potential hazards in the new product development and enhance the core company competence in the consumer product market. The number of product related-accidents has been growing in the past decade. Industry 4.0 is a new concept to increase the product manufacturing efficiency. This paper studies the opportunities of integrating the use of assessment model and Industry 4.0 to improve product safety in new product development process. This paper discusses (i) current assessment models, (ii) current new product development problems, (iii) Industry 4.0 applications, (iv) Integration of assessment model and Industry 4.0, and (vi) two major product-recall cases of consumer products in the US.