• Can you recommend Regulatory & Science Consultants?

Because the CPSIA Act  was issued by the US Congress, most of this regulatory & science expertise is found in the US.

The CPSIA certified labs have the science expertise required but you should have access to that expertise as part of your manufacturing process.

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• What kind of labelling is required for the item, it is just a logo or an explanation?

This is not clearly defined but it must be explicit enough that a retailer or consumer can differentiate an identified problem item from “good” items. As an example, if there was a problem with red dye lot in a coloured pencil manufacturing run but previous runs were fine, the marking/labelling should be explicit enough to differentiate the pencils.

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• Can you please explain why packaging variations of the same item requires testing?

Packaging in general needs to be tested.

•    If your organization is responsible for Blistercard packing and you can get your packing supplier to confirm that all packaging materials, glues, staples etc. are from common (and tested to CPSIA standards) source material lots you can likely issue a single GCC representing all formats.

•    If you are distributing or re-selling products from domestic manufacturers, they would be responsible to issue GCC's for the product that including the blistercard packing.

•    If you are importing products for re-sale, the blistercard packing would need to included as part of your product testing plan unless your organization is prepared to accept the assurance of the foreign manufacturer that packing is compliant for each product. Your orgnization would be issuing the GCC and assuming the risk.

•    Regardless, you need a regulatory and risk opinion from your legal counsel and compliance officer.

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• Should you offer a set of coloured pencils in 12-count, 24-count and 36-count, why can you not send the 36-count as this set contains all 12 and 24 colours?

•    You should be able to take advantage of this strategy if the 36 pack includes all colours and styles in the smaller packs AND all pencils were manufactured from the same material lots.

•    Depending on the construction and colours of the individual pencils, there may be further opportunities to schedule representative testing. If you are confident that  a “black” coloured pencil is representative of  the green and the blue pencil materials and engineering, the black test results could be used to generate the GCC's for the others. These decisions would be based on your organizations understanding of the “science” (as I referenced a few times during the seminar) related to your products and the CPSIA act.

•    Again you need a regulatory opinion from your legal counsel and compliance officer.

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• How often do the products need to be tested?

•    Every time a material lot (materials and parts used to manufacture your products) changes.

•    If the products are imported, a comprehensive strategy would be to re-test per PO. If you have confidence in your manufacturer and trust his process, you may decide to test when he indicates new material lots have been purchased. If you follow the latter strategy, you would be wise to implement a random testing strategy to ensure the results are consistent and the GCC's are correct.

•    There are products that require annual testing independent of a change in the manufacturing process.  Often these types of products overlap with FDA regulations.

•    Again you need a regulatory opinion from your legal counsel and compliance officer.

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• Do we need to pay yearly “royalty” fees to have the certification printed on collateral/item, etc?

If you are a member of of an industry organization that has a “safety” standard, you may find that most, even all of the testing is consistent with the CPSIA requirements. This may enable you to better control your testing costs but you must still issue GCC's. You should make sure that the labs and tests conducted are CPSIA approved at a minimum.

This is an area where you must get a regulatory opinion from your legal counsel and compliance officer

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