Review Reports - Development and Application of a Diagnosis and Evaluation System for Product Safety Management in Manufacturing Companies: A Case Study of Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Companies in Korea

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper refers to developing and applying a diagnosis and evaluation system for product safety management in manufacturing companies.

Abstract

There is repetition in the abstract. The abstract must be rewritten.

1. Introduction

The safety incidents mentioned are not commonly known. References are needed.

The new technologies mentioned are not commonly known. References are needed.

All the abbreviations (such as VR-AR) need to be defined.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1 Major Countries Product Safety Evaluation Models

All the abbreviations (such as NEISS) need to be defined the first time they are used.

The information reported is outdated. 2015 is too old for this type of research.

Which other countries use RAPEX apart from the 30 countries already mentioned?

Webpages and telephone numbers are not relevant for an international journal paper.

Review of spelling throughout the text. Particularly Table 1

All tables and figures should be referenced within the text, and the objective of the table/figure and what it shows should be explained.

There is no apparent reason why using maturity levels is essential for evaluating a product's safety.

The last paragraph of section 2.1 is not clear.

2.2 Maturity Model

Reference from 1979 is outdated, or the dates of the subsequent studies should be mentioned.

Spelling mistakes. Review the text.

What is the difference between the five levels and the five stages mentioned in this section?

3. Research Model

3.1 Product Safety Management Maturity Model

Define what is the "innovation process of product safety".

Section 3.1 is not clear. Consider rewriting it.

Define what is the meaning of 'exemplary standards'

Nolan model has four stages, and the model proposed has only three stages. Justify.

3.2 Product Safety Management Diagnosis and Evaluation System

Define what the 'Product Safety Basic Act' is.

Is Figure 2 out of place or wrongly referred to? All tables and figures should be referenced within the text, and the objective of the table/figure and what it shows should be explained.

As this is the research centre, more effort should be put into this section.

4. Case study

Repetition in the text and the message is not conveyed clearly. The section must be rewritten.

Case study wrongly defined, i.e. single products e.g. electric mat, is compared with a vague category of products, e.g. power tools. A more specific product and not a category of products should be evaluated.

4.2.2 Maturity Level by Revenue Category.

The 'Substandar' category is not defined. Is it better or worse than the 'Beyond Bound' category? The graphs are not clear.

As there is no explanation of the tables within the text, it is not easy to understand the objective of these results.

In general, it is a good job, and the fact that it is already applied in the public sector makes it relevant for publication; however, the actual diagnosis and evaluation system is not clearly explained. How is it applied? This is the procedure step by step. What is the difference between this new method and the ones currently used in the industry? Additional details needed.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

The content reflecting your feedback is as follows.

Abstract

Comments 1: There is repetition in the abstract. The abstract must be rewritten.
Respond 1: There has been an mistake on the abstract. Page 1, line 19-27 has been reworten about the application of diagnosis and evalutation system

1. Introduction

Comments 2 : The safety incidents mentioned are not commonly known. References are needed.
Respond 2 : Page 3 Line 99 to 101, we added an reference of safety incidents and safety culture.

Comments 3 : The new technologies mentioned are not commonly known. References are needed.
Respond 3 :page 1 Line 40 to Page 2 line 46 We have addressed the comment regarding the new technologies mentioned not being commonly known by providing detailed examples and appropriate references. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Comments 4 : All the abbreviations (such as VR-AR) need to be defined.
Respond 4 : all abbreviations has been defined before using abbreviations.

2. Theoretical Background
2.1 Major Countries Product Safety Evaluation Models

Comments 5 : All the abbreviations (such as NEISS) need to be defined the first time they are used.
Respond 5 : all abbreviations has been defined before using abbreviations.

Comments 6 : The information reported is outdated. 2015 is too old for this type of research.
Respond 6 : The last part of the first paragraph in Section 2.1 has been updated with the latest information.

Comments 7 : Which other countries use RAPEX apart from the 30 countries already mentioned?
Respond 7 : In the third paragraph of Section 2.1, the text was revised to '31 countries (including the EU's 27 member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland).' According to the latest findings, only 31 countries officially share RAPEX information. While other countries may have unofficial access to the information, they are not directly participating in the RAPEX system and were therefore not considered.

Comments 8 : Webpages and telephone numbers are not relevant for an international journal paper.
Respond 8 : webpages and telephone numbers are deleted in the manuscript.

Comments 9 : Review of spelling throughout the text. Particularly Table 1
Respond 9 : Table 1, 'In the Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) section', "Surveil-lance" was corrected to the proper spelling: "Surveillance" → "Operation of the Consumer Injury Surveillance System (CISS)".

Comments 10 : All tables and figures should be referenced within the text, and the objective of the table/figure and what it shows should be explained.
respond 10 : The issues you pointed out have been reviewed and corrected throughout the entire paper. Thank you.

comments 11 : There is no apparent reason why using maturity levels is essential for evaluating a product's safety.
Respond 11:
In this study, the necessity of maturity levels in the context of product safety or in this research is explained in '1. Introduction' under three sections: 1) Systematic Diagnosis of Corporate Safety Management Capabilities, 2) Establishment of a Sustainable Product Safety Management System, and 3) Application in Future Government-Supported Product Safety Consulting Programs.

Comments 12 : The last paragraph of section 2.1 is not clear.
respond 12 : the last paragraph of section 2.1 has been rewroten to be clear.

2.2 Maturity Model

Comments 13 : Reference from 1979 is outdated, or the dates of the subsequent studies should be mentioned.
respond 13 : Since the references primarily focus on foundational studies related to maturity levels, many of the sources are older. To incorporate more recent studies, I have referred to models such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and the Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM). If there are still any areas that need further improvement, I will make the necessary revisions. Thank you.

Comments 14 : What is the difference between the five levels and the five stages mentioned in this section?
respond 14 : The differences in terminology used by various researchers do not indicate distinct meanings for 'level' and 'stage'; they are essentially used interchangeably. Consequently we have used the terminology from previous studies without making any modifications. This has been an excellent opportunity to reflect on the differences between 'level' and 'stage,' allowing for deeper consideration. Thank you for your valuable insights.

3. Research Model
3.1 Product Safety Management Maturity Model

Commetents 15 : Define what is the "innovation process of product safety".
respond 15 : It was written with the intent of representing each company's unique process for achieving the 'Innovation in product safety management' as defined in the first line of Section 3.1.

comments 16 : Section 3.1 is not clear. Consider rewriting it.
respond 16 : We have restructured and rewritten Section 3.1 to improve clarity. Thank you for your feedback.

Comments 17: Define what is the meaning of 'exemplary standards'
respond 17 : It has been added to the second paragraph of Section 3.1.

Comments 18 : Nolan model has four stages, and the model proposed has only three stages. Justify.
respond 18 : In the field of product safety management, the three key levels "Compliance, Enhanced Compliance, and Leadership" were considered sufficient to effectively assess the maturity of product safety management and provide clear improvement directions. The fourth stage of the Nolan model, which represents a more detailed and complex level of maturity, was integrated into the Leadership stage in this study to simplify the framework.

3.2 Product Safety Management Diagnosis and Evaluation System

Comments 19 : Define what the 'Product Safety Basic Act' is.
respond 19 : Added to the end of the sixth paragraph in Section 3.2.

Comments 20 : Is Figure 2 out of place or wrongly referred to? All tables and figures should be referenced within the text, and the objective of the table/figure and what it shows should be explained.
Respond 20 : Added to the end of the sixth paragraph in Section 3.2.

4. Case study

Comments 21 : Repetition in the text and the message is not conveyed clearly. The section must be rewritten.
respond 21 : Section 4 was newly structured, and the results were derived accordingly.

Comments 22 : Case study wrongly defined, i.e. single products e.g. electric mat, is compared with a vague category of products, e.g. power tools. A more specific product and not a category of products should be evaluated.
respond 22 : The rationale and explanation have been added to Section 4.1.

4.2.2 Maturity Level by Revenue Category.

Comments 23 : The 'Substandar' category is not defined. Is it better or worse than the 'Beyond Bound' category? The graphs are not clear.
Respond 23 : The corresponding tables and figures have been removed, and the analysis content in Sections 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 has been revised for greater clarity.

Comments 24 : As there is no explanation of the tables within the text, it is not easy to understand the objective of these results.
Respond 24 : Section 4 was newly structured, and the results were derived accordingly.

Comments 25 : Spelling mistakes
Respond 25 : We have thoroughly reviewed and corrected spelling mistakes throughout the manuscript. We apologize for any oversight and appreciate your understanding. Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the report, the author illustrates a system designed to evaluate the safety of products, enabling governments to oversee the market and helping companies enhance their products. Further efforts are required to make the report suitable for publication.

1. Page 1, lines between 20 and 25 is the same with text within line 12 and 17.

2. Page 1, line 33, listing references for the cases of ‘convergence and integration’ would benefit the readers

3. Page 2, line 49, references or more explanations need to shown how the ‘culture’ is related to the present work.

4. Page 3, line 86, list references for this statement.

5. Page 4, line 130, The author should illustrate how and why the current models are insufficient. And list some references for readers.

6. Page 5, line 163, If the system was proposed by the authors, there can list some of the previous works or publications.

7, Page 6, The sentence 192 is repeated.

8, Page 8, Table 5 is not presented and explained in the main text.

9, Page, 8, the author should give an explicit statement on how the scores are defined in the main text.

10, Page 9, how the 40% is calculated?

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable review.
Below is the content reflecting the feedback provided.

Comments 1 : 1. Page 1, lines between 20 and 25 is the same with text within line 12 and 17.
Respond 1 : There has been an mistake on the abstract. Page 1, line 19-27 has been reworten about the application of diagnosis and evalutation system

Comments 2 : Page 1, line 33, listing references for the cases of ‘convergence and integration’ would benefit the readers
Respond 2 : page1, line 38 to 44 are examples of convergence and integration products. Thank you for pointing out the problem.

Comments 3 : Page 2, line 49, references or more explanations need to shown how the ‘culture’ is related to the present work.
Respond 3 : Page 2, line 89 to page 3, line 105 has been added of Previous studies about Product safety culture. it demonstarte of its positive impact on safety consciousness, behavior, and product reliability.

Comments 4 : Page 3, line 86, list references for this statement.
Respond 4 : page 8 line 209, has added the references about discussions of traditional evaluation model

Comments 5 : Page 4, line 130, The author should illustrate how and why the current models are insufficient. And list some references for readers.
Respond 5 : page 9 line 260 to 265,We have provided relevant references to support our argument of insufficiency of product safety

Comments 6 : Page 5, line 163, If the system was proposed by the authors, there can list some of the previous works or publications.
Respond 6 : This classification is used as a policy tool by the government agency 'Korean Agency for Technology and Standards,' and therefore, the report published by the agency has been cited as a reference.

Comments 7 : Page 6, The sentence 192 is repeated.
respond 7 page 12 line 358, the repeated sentence are deleted

Comments 8 : 8, Page 8, Table 5 is not presented and explained in the main text.
Respond 8: Page 13, line 448, has added the reference

Comments 9 : Page, 8, the author should give an explicit statement on how the scores are defined in the main text.
respond 9 : The analysis results of '4.2 Product Safety Management Diagnosis and Evaluation Results' have been clarified and added to the main text. You can find the updated content on page 15~19.

Comments 10 : Page 9, how the 40% is calculated?
respond 10 : The analysis results of '4.2 Product Safety Management Diagnosis and Evaluation Results' have been clarified and added to the main text. You can find the updated content on page 15~19.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The detailed peer review report is attached with specific comments and suggestions for improvement of the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable feedback on my paper.

We have made every effort to incorporate your feedback as thoroughly as possible.

Section 1 (Introduction):

1) The literature review fails to establish a clear theoretical foundation for why existing product safety management approaches are insufficient for SMEs specifically.

Respond: Added on page 2, lines 49–65.

2) The research gap regarding diagnostic systems for product safety management needs more explicit articulation.

Respond: It corresponds to Section 2.2 Maturity Model and Section 3.1 Product Safety Management Maturity Model. Specifically, in Section 2.2, it is mentioned that research on maturity models for product safety management is still insufficient, and in Section 3.1, the necessity of developing a diagnostic system is emphasized.

3) The justification for using maturity models in product safety management requires stronger theoretical grounding.

4) The authors make several unsupported claims about the benefits of their proposed system without providing empirical evidence.

Respond: Added on page 4, lines 186–190.

5) The relationship between product safety management and sustainability needs to be better established given the journal's scope.

Respond: Added on page 4, lines 164–177.

Section 2 (Theoretical Background):

6) The review of maturity models is comprehensive but lacks critical analysis of their limitations when applied to product safety management.

Respond: Added on page 9, lines 290–295.

7) The discussion of existing product safety evaluation systems in different countries needs deeper analysis of their strengths and weaknesses.

Respond: Summarize strengths and weaknesses in a table on pages 6–7.

8) The connection between maturity models and product safety management systems requires stronger theoretical development.

Respond: The relevant content in Section 3.1 on page 9 has been explained.

9) The review should include more recent literature (post-2020) on product safety management systems.

Respond: The most recent literature has been extensively reviewed.

10) The theoretical framework linking

Respond: The relevant content in Section 3.1 on page 9 has been explained.

Section 3 (Research Model):

11) The selection criteria for the three evaluation dimensions (technical, operational, awareness) need better justification.

Respond: The criteria for selecting technical, operational, and awareness dimensions are discussed in lines 339–359 on page 10, and the validity of the detailed indicators is supported by a literature review presented in Table 3 on page 12.

12) The maturity level classifications (Lower Bound, Upper Bound, Beyond Bound) appear arbitrary - theoretical support for these divisions should be provided.

Respond: The relevant content in Section 3.1 on page 9 has been explained.

13) The methodology for developing evaluation criteria requires more detailed explanation.

Respond: The relevant content in Section 3.3 on page 12 has been explained.

14) The weighting system for different evaluation components needs clearer justification.

Respond: The relevant content has been added in lines 421–439 on page 13.

15) The validation process for the evaluation framework should be more rigorous.

Respond: The relevant content has been added in lines 415–420 on page 13.

Section 4 (Case Study):

16) The sample selection process needs a more detailed explanation and justification.

Respond: The relevant content has been added in lines 443–455 on page 13.

17) The case study results would benefit from statistical analysis to support the findings.

Respond: The analysis results for "4.2.1. Statistical Analysis by Industry (Descriptive Statistics, ANOVA Analysis)" and "4.2.2. Analysis by Maturity Levels" have been added on pages 15–19.

18) Comparison between different product categories requires more robust analysis.

Respond: The results of the analysis by product category are presented in "4.2.1. Statistical Analysis by Industry (Descriptive Statistics, ANOVA Analysis)" on page 15.

19) The relationship between company size and safety management capabilities needs deeper examination.

Respond: The Establishment Year-wise Analysis, Number of Employees-wise Analysis, and Revenue-wise Analysis were conducted on pages 16–19.

20) The limitations of applying the framework to different industry contexts should be discussed.

Respond: It seems that the conceptual expansion of this framework could be explored in future research. Unfortunately, it was not incorporated into this paper.

Section 5 (Conclusion):

21) The conclusions need stronger connection to the empirical evidence presented.

Respond: The statistical analysis results and implications from Chapter 4 have been addressed in the conclusion section.

22) The practical implications for SMEs should be more clearly articulated.

Respond: We made an effort to incorporate the relevant content in "4.3.1 Provision of Policy Materials in the Field of Product Safety" and "5. Conclusion" on page 19~22.

23) The limitations section needs expansion, particularly regarding generalizability.

Respond: It seems that the conceptual expansion of this framework could be explored in future research. Unfortunately, it was not incorporated into this paper.

24) Future research directions should more directly address the methodological gaps identified.

Respond: It seems that the conceptual expansion of this framework could be explored in future research. Unfortunately, it was not incorporated into this paper.

25) The policy recommendations require more specific guidance for implementation.

Respond: The relevant content is addressed in "4.3.2 Provision of Individual Company Diagnostic Reports" on page 21.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My comments have been answered. No further comments on the manuscript. It is ready for publication.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I have evaluated the revised version and appreciate your careful attention to my previous suggestions. Your responses to the first round of review comments were comprehensive. The manuscript has been enhanced by these modifications.

I have forwarded my recommendation for publication of the current version.