7. Our advice

As with any book, you'll find an exhaustive range of tools and methods. It's up to you and your partners to select the most appropriate tool or method at each stage. These tools and methods are at your service, not the other way round. Let's take the example of risks to be identified: you can choose between :

• do a SWOT in one hour to identify the key points;

• carry out a preliminary risk analysis in 2 hours;

• perform an FMECA analysis within 8 hours of completing your preliminary project;

• carry out a complete operational safety study in just a few days.

The most important thing is the quality of your risk analysis. A complete file of useless analyses adds little to your design project.