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Small Batch Manufacturers – Time to Register for 2016

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Small Batch RegistryIf you are a registered small batch manufacturer with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for calendar year 2015 and you wish to continue in this status, you must register again for calendar year 2016.  Registration must be submitted annually. 

 

If you have not previously registered your small business with CPSC, but now wish to do so, please follow the instructions below but note that you will first have to create a user ID and password before you will be able to follow all of the steps below.

Registration is now open for calendar year 2016. 

If you wish to register as a small batch manufacturer for calendar year 2016, your registration must be based upon the total number of the same product units sold (7,500 units) and the total gross revenues ($1,086,627 or less) from the sales of all consumer products in the previous calendar year – January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2015.  If you meet those two requirements (the total gross revenues figure has been updated for inflation this year), you may now register for calendar year 2016 by logging into your user account in the Business Portal at: www.SaferProducts.gov.

 

Step 1:  Login:  When you log in to your account at: www.SaferProducts.gov and you click the “Small Batch Manufacturer” tab with your cursor, you will be asked to attest that your company satisfies the criteria you first used to register; the criteria are nearly the same as last year and only the gross total revenue figure has been updated to account for inflation.

 

If you do not see the “Small Batch Manufacturer” tab on your screen when you login, you may be using the wrong email login.  Remember that you may have used multiple emails when you created your account.  You should use the Business Account User ID login, which is often a general address, such as info@company.com, and not your personal or other email address, such as neal@company.com.  If you login correctly, you will be able to see all the tabs, including ‘Small Batch Manufacturer.’  If you need further assistance logging in, contact Clearinghouse@cpsc.gov.

 

Step 2:  Registration:  Once you are certain that you can attest to the truth and accuracy of the statements for your sales and your revenues in calendar year 2016, you may check the boxes and submit your registration.  Within the next day or so, you will receive a confirmation e-mail message with your new, unique Small Batch Manufacturer Registration Number for 2016.  *Please save that e-mail message for your reference.* 

 

Please note that when you log in to your account after your registration for calendar year 2016 is accepted, your Business Portal account will display your unique Small Batch Manufacturer Registration Number for both calendar year 2015 and calendar year 2016.  Please use the appropriate number (from 2015 or 2016, based on the date of your product’s manufacture or final assembly) in drafting your Children’s Product Certificate.

 

Total Gross Revenues:  Note that the total gross revenues for your company from the prior calendar year (e.g., calendar year 2015 sales to qualify for calendar year 2016) from the sale of all consumer products must be $1,086,627 or less. 

 

(If your company’s revenues are currently $900,000 or more, we recommend that you defer registering with the CPSC until the final 2015 figures are released – the figure above will not be finalized until early 2016.  The size of the final inflation adjustment is still unknown.  If you register before the release and your revenues exceed the maximum allowed amount as adjusted in 2015, you must notify the CPSC to cancel your registration.) 

 

Registration is ongoing, and you may register at any time during the next calendar year – through December 2016.

 

Assistance:  If you have any questions or require assistance with the registration process, please e-mail: clearinghouse@cpsc.gov.

 

If you have any questions about how registration as a small batch manufacturer with the CPSC affects your obligations to test and certify your products as compliant with applicable consumer product safety rules or compliance with other CPSC rules, regulations, standards, or bans, please review the program information at: www.cpsc.gov/smallbatch.  If you need further assistance, please e-mail Neal Cohen at: ncohen@cpsc.gov.

 

 

Small Batch Manufacturers – Register for 2015

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Small Batch Registry

If you are  currently a registered small batch manufacturer with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for calendar year 2014 and you wish to continue in this status, you must register again for calendar year 2015. 

Registration must be submitted annually. 

If you have not previously registered your small business with CPSC, but now wish to do so, please follow the instructions below but note that you will first have to create a user ID and password before you will be able to follow all of the steps below.

Registration is now open for calendar year 2015. 

If you wish to register as a small batch manufacturer for calendar year 2015, your registration must be based upon the total number of the same product units sold (7,500 units) and the total gross revenues ($1,068,336 or less) from the sales of all consumer products in the previous calendar year – January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014.  If you meet those two requirements (the total gross revenues figure has been updated for inflation this year), you may now register for calendar year 2015 by logging into your user account in the Business Portal at: www.SaferProducts.gov.

Step 1:  Login:  When you log in to your account at: www.SaferProducts.gov and you click the “Small Batch Manufacturer” tab with your cursor, you will be asked to attest that your company satisfies the criteria you first used to register; the criteria are nearly the same as last year and only the gross total revenue figure has been updated to account for inflation.

If you do not see the “Small Batch Manufacturer” tab on your screen when you login, you may be using the wrong email login.  Remember that you may have used multiple emails when you created your account.  You should use the Business Account User ID login, which is often a general address, such as info@company.com, and not your personal or other email address, such as neal@company.com.  If you login correctly, you will be able to see all the tabs, including ‘Small Batch Manufacturer.’  If you need further assistance logging in, contact Clearinghouse@cpsc.gov.

Step 2:  Registration:  Once you are certain that you can attest to the truth and accuracy of the statements for your sales and your revenues in calendar year 2015, you may check the boxes and submit your registration.  Within the next day or so, you will receive a confirmation e-mail message with your new, unique Small Batch Manufacturer Registration Number for 2015.  *Please save that e-mail message for your reference.* 

Please note that when you log in to your account after your registration for calendar year 2015 is accepted, your Business Portal account will display your unique Small Batch Manufacturer Registration Number for both calendar year 2014 and calendar year 2015.  Please use the appropriate number (from 2014 or 2015, based on the date of your product’s manufacture or final assembly) in drafting your Children’s Product Certificate.

Total Gross Revenues:  Note that the total gross revenues for your company from the prior calendar year (e.g., calendar year 2014 sales to qualify for calendar year 2015) from the sale of all consumer products must be $1,068,336 or less. 

(If your company’s revenues are currently $900,000 or more, we recommend that you defer registering with the CPSC until the final 2014 figures are released – the figure above will not be finalized until early 2015.  The size of the final inflation adjustment is still unknown.  If you register before the release and your revenues exceed the maximum allowed amount as adjusted in 2014, you must notify the CPSC to cancel your registration.) 

Registration is ongoing, and you may register at any time during the next calendar year – through December 2015.

Assistance:  If you have any questions or require assistance with the registration process, please e-mail: clearinghouse@cpsc.gov.

 

If you have any questions about how registration as a small batch manufacturer with the CPSC affects your obligations to test and certify your products as compliant with applicable consumer product safety rules or compliance with other CPSC rules, regulations, standards, or bans, please review the program information at: www.cpsc.gov/smallbatch.  If you need further assistance, please e-mail Neal Cohen, CPSC Small Business Ombudsman at: ncohen@cpsc.gov.

 

Are you a Small Batch Manufacturer? If So you need to register today with CPSC!

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Jan 2, 2012, by Bill Jacoby

 

FYI – Important if you are a Manufacturer of Children’s Products.

The CPSC has defined a “children’s product” to mean a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. In determining whether a consumer product is primarily intended for a child 12 years of age or younger, you need to take the following factors into consideration:

  • A statement by the manufacturer about the intended use of the product, including a label on the product if such a statement is reasonable.
  • Whether the product is represented in its packaging, display, promotion or advertising as appropriate for use by children 12 years of age or younger.
  • Whether a product is commonly recognized by consumers as being intended for use by a child 12 years of age or younger
  • The Age Determination Guidelines issued by the CPSC staff in September 2002, and any successor to such guidelines

If you qualify and if you are a manufacturer of children’s products and produce in small batches, it is critical that you register for a small batch exemption if your sales are less than 1 million dollars from the previous calendar year or you have manufactured less than 7,500 qualifying (children’s products) units. Registering for an exemption will exempt you from third party testing requirements under CPSIA.  Most apparel products were granted broad exemptions already but this will help you in the event your items include non-exempt components. Another thing to keep in mind is that this is just a testing exemption, you are still required to comply with standards defined under the CPSIA law.

HOW TO REGISTER

This is a two step process. Part one is to register your business which will get you an account user ID if you don’t already have one. It is pretty straightforward.

After you request the business ID, you’ll get an email saying that the CPSC is overwhelmed with applicants but they’ve got you in the queue and will get back to you as soon as they can. This may take up to 12 hours, maybe more. Once they get back to you, you will need to confirm the registration by activating your account by creating a password. You may hit a snag at this point if you’re using the wrong username -say, your company name. The username was created at sign up and consists of your first and last name. Once you’ve activated your account, you can sign up as a small batch manufacturer. This is also fairly straightforward.

As a qualifying small batch manufacturer, you will need to register with the CPSC on an annual basis. You will still need to issue a certificate (CPC/GCC), however you will not need to conduct third -party testing for either lead or phthalate content. Additionally, your products must still meet both the lead and phthalate content limits.

You can visit the CPSC page for more information. Ignorance of the law is no excuse so please register today.

 

CPSC Launches Registry for Small Batch Manufacturers

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dec 23, 2011, CPSC is launching an easy-to-use registry for small batch manufacturers, which can be found at www.SaferProducts.gov. Congress directed CPSC to establish this registry for small batch manufacturers in Public Law 112-28, which was signed into law by President Obama on August 12, 2011.

Small batch manufacturers, defined as those who earned $1 million or less in total gross revenues from sales of consumer products in 2011, and who produced in total no more than 7,500 units of at least one consumer product in 2011 can register for calendar year 2012 at www.SaferProducts.gov. Qualifying small batch manufacturers are not required to third party test for compliance with certain children’s product safety rules during 2012 for products which they produced no more than 7,500 units of in the previous calendar year.

This new registry does not exempt small batch manufacturers from ensuring that their products comply with these mandatory standards. Small batch manufacturers must still provide a certificate of conformity, in which the manufacturers certify in writing that their products comply with the applicable regulations. However, except where required by law, the certificate does not have to be based on third party testing.

Effective December 31, 2011, the stays of enforcement on third-party testing and certification for limits on total lead content for children’s products, the ban on certain phthalates for children’s toys and child care articles, and the mandatory toy standard (ASTM F963) will end. CPSC launched an education and outreach effort to ensure widespread awareness of the new federal requirements and has also provided assistance and guidance to small batch manufacturers to help them understand these new requirements.

For additional information on the Small Batch Manufacturers Registry and small batch guidance materials, please see www.cpsc.gov/smallbatch. You may also contact our small business ombudsman Neal Cohen at ncohen@cpsc.gov or through www.cpsc.gov/sbo

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The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $900 billion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard. CPSC’s work to ensure the safety of consumer products – such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals – contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury, go online to: www.saferproducts.gov, call CPSC’s Hotline at (800) 638-2772 or teletypewriter at (800) 638-8270 for the hearing impaired. Consumers can obtain this news release and product safety information at www.cpsc.gov. To join a free e-mail subscription list, please go tohttps://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx.

CPSIA,You & January 1, 2012….Are You Ready?

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                          CPSIA Stay of Enforcement Expires 12/31/11                  

              Are you a Manufacturer, Distributor or Retailer Selling Children’s Products

              TOP 10 Things You Need to Know as we start the New Year

The intent of this list is to provide guidance to Children’s Product manufacturers and Retailers as they implement the provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Information Act (CPSIA), as administered by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The information in this article should not be construed as legal advice.

Dec 28,2011 by Bill Jacoby

1. Overview       CPSIA becomes fully effective on January 1st, 2012. As of this date, all Children’s product Manufacturers and Distributors are required to issue a General Certificate of Conformity (GCC), also known as a Children’s Product Certificate (CPC), based on third-party testing from a CPSC-recognized laboratory, to Retailers and distributors, and upon request to the CPSC for children’s products imported or distributed in commerce on or after January 1, 2012

2. Children’s Products Defined     The CPSC has defined a “children’s product” to mean a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. In determining whether a consumer product is primarily intended for a child 12 years of age or younger, you need to take the following factors into consideration:

  • A statement by the manufacturer about the intended use of the product, including a label on the product if such a statement is reasonable.
  • Whether the product is represented in its packaging, display, promotion or advertising as appropriate for use by children 12 years of age or younger.
  • Whether a product is commonly recognized by consumers as being intended for use by a child 12 years of age or younger
  • The Age Determination Guidelines issued by the CPSC staff in September 2002, and any successor to such guidelines

3. Third-Party Testing       All Children’s Products are required to undergo third- party testing.  Third – party testing must be conducted at a CPSC-approved, accredited laboratory to determine the total lead content in children’s product meets the approved limit.

4. Exemptions   Under the Legislation, which was passed and signed by President Obama in August 2011, there is an exemption for small batch Manufacturers. To qualify as a small batch manufacturer, you must meet this two-part test:

  1. Income: Total gross revenues from the prior calendar year (2011 sales to qualify for 2012) from the sale of all consumer products is $1million or less.
  2. Covered product: No more than 7500 units of the same product were manufactured in the previous calendar year. (2011)

As a qualifying small batch manufacturer, you will need to register with the CPSC on an annual basis. You will still need to issue a certificate (CPC/GCC), however you will not need to conduct third -party testing for either lead or phthalate content. Additionally, your products must still meet both the lead and phthalate content limits.

5. Phthalate Content Considerations       Congress has permanently prohibited three phthalates: DEHP,DBP and BBP ( in concentration of more than 0.1percent ) in children’s toys or child care articles. “Three additional phthalates: DINP,DIDP and DnOP, have been prohibited pending further study

A “children’s toy” means a product intended for a child 12 years of age or younger for use when playing, and a “child care article” means a product that a child three years of age and younger would use for sleeping, feeding, sucking or teething.                  Please note that wearing apparel falls under the definition of a child-care article if it is intended to facilitate eating and sleeping.

6. General Certificate of Conformity    A GCC / CPC is a document that certifies that the product complies with the CPSIA regulations, based on a test of each product or a reasonable testing program. The law requires that each import (and domestic manufacturer) shipment be “accompanied” by the required certificate. This certificate does not need to physically accompany the product. Under CPSC regulations, an electronic certificate is “accompanying” a shipment if the certificate is identified by a unique identifier and can be accessed via a World Wide Web URL or other electronic means, provided the URL or other electronic means and the unique identifier are created in advance and are available with the shipment.

Each GCC/ CPC certificate must include the following information:

  • Identification of the product covered by the certificate
  • Applicable CPSC rule or ban to which product is being certified
  • Identification of manufacturer
  • Identification of the person maintaining the testing information
  • Date and place where the product was manufactured.
  • Date and place where he product was tested.
  • Identification of the third– party testing facility used.

Note: GCC’s area used for consumer products and CPC (Children’s Product Certificate) is used for children’s Products.

7. Component Part Testing    Component testing, as outlined by the CPSC, is voluntary ad can be undertaken by either the component manufacturer or the manufacturer of the children’s product. For manufacturers producing children’s wearing apparel, the textile garment does not need to be tested as it has been exempted through regulation. Only the other components, such as the ink, zippers, buttons, etc. must be tested for lead content. If the children’s product also could be classified as a child-care article, only those plasticized elements need to be tested, and a component testing program can also be initiated to satisfy the testing requirements. There are documentation / recordkeeping requirements associated with component –part testing, and all records must be kept for at least five years.

8. Retailer Requirements    Each retailer must keep a GCC or CPC for each product sold on file. These will be sent by the manufacturer or distributor with each shipment or via email or other electronic format such as a url, or website starting on 1/1/12.  You must maintain these certificates and be able to produce them to the CPSC upon request.

9. Enforcement Penalties       The CPSC has issued a final rule that outlines the civil penalties associated with noncompliance activities. As of August 14th, 2009, the commission has the ability to seek penalty amounts of up to $100,000 for each violation. Maximum penalty amounts for a related series of violations have been increased from $1.8 million to $15 million. At a recent Toy Industry event there was a firm acknowledgement by CPSC Commissioner Nord that the January 1, 2012 enforcement date for CPSIA regulations will bring a change to the industry.  All Stays of Enforcement will have expired and the CPSC will be more diligent in its review of toys at ports of entry and failure to comply … with third party testing regulations, leaving off traffic information, and other discrepancies, will result in the holding of the shipment and fines of up to $100,000. 

10. Are you Ready?    For products manufactured or distributed in commerce after December 31, 2011, a GCC or CPC must accompany each shipment which clearly states that the product complies with either the lead or phthalate content limit as applicable and must contain information of the third-party testing facility used. All documentation must be retained for five years!

Do you have the operational process place in your company to makes sure the certificates are sent out each and every time? As a retailer, are you prepared for the flood of certificates coming your way and do you have documentation procedures in place for retention?

Jacoby Solutions has developed the CORE Audit™ (Compliance Operations Readiness Engagement Audit), the company’s proprietary approach to business operations compliance readiness. A one-stop shop for manufacturing and distribution companies in need of a solutions partner who can help them evolve their business while keeping an eye on compliance, Jacoby Solutions saves companies time, money and resources while helping them become CPSIA ready.