US CPSC's children's products certification requirement soon to take effect

January 2013

Relevant for:  Toys & children's products

In our previous issue in Dec 2011, we updated you about the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)’s release of certification requirements for children’s product. These requirements, as listed in 16 CFR 1107 – Testing and Labeling Pertaining to Product Certification, will take effect on 8 Feb 2013 and apply to products manufactured after that date. Here is a glance of what 16 CFR 1107 requires:

Certification of Children’s Products:

  • HDoA (High Degree of Assurance) – Submit sufficient number of samples for testing to ensure high degree of assurance
  • Component Part Testing – May utilize component part testing according to 16 CFR 1109 (effective 8 Dec 2011) to support certification testing requirement
  • Investigation on Failing Sample – When a product sample fails its certification testing, even though other samples have passed the same certification test, manufacturers must investigate the reasons for the failure before certifying the product.
  • Periodic testing - All manufacturers of children's products must conduct periodic testing by a third party conformity assessment body within a certain time interval:
    • At least once a year for manufacturers with periodic testing plan; or
    • At least once every two years for manfacturers with production testing plan; or
    • At least once every three years for manufacturers that test their prodcuts for compliance after certification by an ISO/IEC 17025:2005(E) accredited testing laboratory. This testing laboratory, whether a third party testing lab, must be accredtied by an ISO/IEC 17011:2004(E) accreditation body.
  • Material change – Manufacturers must submit samples for third party testing if there is any material change in product design or anufacturing process and can only issue a new certificate for the product when it meets all applicable requirements. If the material change is limited to a component part and does not affect the rest of the product, manufacturer may test the component part to its applicable requirements and certify the product based on earlier third party test results and on test results of the changed component parts.
  • Undue influence – Manufacturers must establish procedures to prevent any undue influence by a manufacturer on a third party
    testing laboratory.
  • Record keeping – Manufacturers must maintain the following records for at least 5 years:
    • Copy of children's prodcut certificate for each product;
    • Records of each third party certification test;
    • Records of periodic test results and its periodic testing plan, production testing plan, or ISO/IEC 17025:2005(E) laboratory testing results;
    • Records of description of all material changes in product design, manufacturing process, and sourcing of component parts, and the certification tests run and the test values;
    • Records of the undue influence procedures, including training records

16 CFR 1107 also listed a voluntary labeling program for manufacturers nd private labelers of consumer product that is certified in compliance with all applicable CPSC product safety rules/bans, standards, or regulations, which allows their products to be labeled “Meets CPSC Safety Requirements.” Manufacturers and private labelers may also include any additional labels on the product as long as they do not imply that the CPSC has tested, approved, or endorsed the product.