Young America works on Intertek certification
Young America works on Intertek certification
By Gerri Hunt -- Kids Today, 5/1/2010 12:00:00 AM
Young America by Stanley is moving toward its goal of building the safest cribs in the juvenile marketplace as it nears the end of the process of adding Intertek certification to its long list of guidelines.
Intertek is an internationally accredited, third-party safety and design certification lab. To obtain its seal, products must meet a strict set of safety and quality guidelines at different steps in the design and manufacturing process.
“We can all agree on the blows our industry has suffered with all the recalls,” said Ward O'Quinn, vice-president and product manager of Young America. “And by the procedure of a checkmark, the standard is raised in the industry to develop or attempt to develop safe cribs. Young America wants to be on the forefront.”
The process began when the company sent cribs to Intertek for review. A design-hazard analysis was completed, targeting product information, incident and recall data, defining safety requirements and making recommendations. Cribs underwent JPMA testing to determine ASTM compliance, and CPSIA testing for phthalates and heavy metals, among other things.
For the last few months, Intertek has spent time at the Young America factory documenting the manufacturing process from start to finish. “They looked at every point in the organization, from design, manufacturing, finishes, receiving … making sure policies and procedures were up to standards,” O'Quinn said.
This step requires all crib parts and assemblies to be tested to the point of failure, analyzing statistics and focusing on improvements. The crib design undergoes an in-depth examination. And a quality assurance plan details instructions to be followed during the sampling, inspection and testing of products – including who performs what activities when. It also provides a pass/fail criterion at each step.
“We're getting a consistent message for all employees on how to make cribs in our plant,” said Cristina Loth, Young America vice president of product innovation, adding that everyone will receive a big binder of instructions.
The manufacturer still needs to go through some testing and reviews before being able to put the Interek Validated seal on its crib packaging and marketing.
“But the timeline already got shortened,” said Loth. “We had already raised our standards for Greenguard certification.” That process deals with chemical emissions and air quality.
Once the Intertek certification is approved, audits will be conducted twice per year. In addition, Interek will purchase cribs from the marketplace annually, to perform inspections and testing.
Young America expects to be shipping cribs with the Intertek seal by June.
This seal will appear on all Intertek-certified cribs that Young America produces.
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