Toy Industry Association

TIA Launches Electronic Certification System for CPSIA Compliance

New York, NY February 10, 2009 – As businesses, consumers and government officials across the nation turn their attention to the enhanced safety of children’s products and today’s implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), the Toy Industry Association, Inc. (TIA) proudly announces the launch of its new Electronic Certification System (ECS) for toys. This web-based platform provides a comprehensive workflow to help domestic manufacturers and importers of toys to the United States efficiently meet the General Certificates of Compliance (GCC) requirements of the CPSIA.

“The makers of children’s products must provide verification of compliance to a broad range of toy safety regulations, including those for lead paint and small parts,” explained Elizabeth Borrelli, TSCP executive director and TIA vice president of corporate social responsibility. “The new ECS helps to reduce the burden of paper certificates while also providing for easy and secure access to electronic certificates by regulators, retailers and distributors.”
Among its benefits, the ECS provides:

• a single, easily accessible website that accommodates the needs of a broad range of suppliers, retailers and regulators; user-controlled organization of certificates (e.g., grouping by key data such as product type, factory, etc.) and management of display results; secure access, user validation and tracking; and
  an ability to demonstrate compliance with legal requirements while maintaining the confidentiality of proprietary information.

Feedback from a small set of users that were engaged in a week-long soft launch of the ECS has been positive: “Using the TSCP website is not only extremely convenient, it is very user-friendly,” said Rori McKinley, ImagAbility, Inc. “The ECS provides an avenue to update and release our … safety documents and certificates at any hour of the day.”
Launch of the ECS is the first phase of TIA’s new Toy Safety Certification ProgramSM (TSCPSM), a comprehensive and sustainable system that will provide reasonable verification that toys meet applicable mandatory U.S. toy safety standards. Development of the program began in August 2007 through a collaborative process that brought together representatives of toy companies, retailers, toy testers, factory auditors, government representatives, consumer groups and conformity assessment experts. The initiative was organized by TIA in partnership with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), coordinator of the U.S. voluntary consensus standards and conformity assessment system.

Additional components of the TSCP and its ECS will be phased in throughout the year in accordance with the schedule of requirements in the CPSIA. Beginning in November 2009, for example, the law requires the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to initiate a program for manufacturers to label product as compliant and to establish protocols and standards to ensure on-going compliance when there has been a material change in the product’s design or manufacturing process including the sourcing of component parts. Historically, CPSC has given recognition to credible and effective industry-created compliance programs versus imposing their own.

The ECS will be demonstrated during the TIA-hosted Toy Safety Seminar on Monday morning, February 16, at the American International Toy Fair in New York City. A Drop-In Learning Center (Booth # 781 on the Toy Fair show floor) will also feature ECS demonstrations on Sunday, February 15, and Tuesday, February 17. Additionally, a webinar introducing the ECS is available.