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This paper presents an application of target cost management (TCM) to the design of product safety in the automobile industry. Product safety occupies a prominent position among corporate strategic plans because safety issues can drive a company to the brink of bankruptcy and even threaten the entire existence of an industry. Safety issues contain legal, marketing, technological, cost and other dimensions, all of which demand ever-greater emphasis on this issue. At the same time, safety has become a moving target whose meaning is subject to court interpretation and societal norms. However, safety cannot be augmented infinitely. A manufacturer is constrained by cost and profitability benchmarks. Companies can use TCM to optimize their focus on safety issues. This paper shows how value engineering (VE), a TCM technique, can help minimize the costs of safety components, while satisfying engineering, product and customer concerns.