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The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is tasked with ensuring products are safe for consumers. Meanwhile, businesses that fail to comply with CPSC guidelines could suffer costly fines, along with brand reputation damage and loss of revenue. 

For example, consider Forman Mills, a New Jersey-based clothing supplier. Forman Mills agreed to pay a $600,000 CSPC penalty in April 2014 after the company knowingly sold about 2,100 children's upper outerwear garments with drawstrings.

CPSC noted Forman Mills failed to comply with federal guidelines, as the company sold or held for sale the garments with drawstrings between June 2007 and February 2010. In addition, CPSC said these garments were recalled on Jan. 6, 2009, Feb. 18, 2010, April 8, 2010 and May 27, 2010. 

Forman Mills also agreed to implement and maintain "a compliance program designed to ensure compliance with the statutes and regulations enforced by [CPSC]," according to the commission. 

Furthermore, CPSC noted Forman Mills now is required to maintain and enforce internal controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed to the commission "is recorded, processed and reported in accordance with applicable law and that all reporting made to the commission is timely, truthful, complete and accurate." 

The aforementioned example illustrates the short- and long-term effects of a single product quality or safety defect. And for companies that want to avoid the same fate as Forman Mills, it is essential to find tools to detect and address product defects quickly and efficiently. 

Fortunately, a state-of-the-art tool is available to help business managers minimize the risk of defective products reaching consumers – PolyVista Alerts+. 

Why should business managers choose PolyVista Alerts+?

Imagine what it would be like to have the ability to identify and resolve all product defects instantly and guarantee compliance with CPSC guidelines consistently. Now, you can transform this dream into a reality with PolyVista Alerts+, a tool designed to help business managers proactively monitor product quality and safety issues. 

PolyVista Alerts+ helps business managers use the information they are already gathering to better protect their customers from potentially hazardous products. It boasts an easy-to-navigate interface, allowing business managers to set up alerts based on keywords and phrases and ensure all safety issues in consumer complaints, product and warranty returns or other critical analyses of products are caught, reported and escalated to the right people. 

Also, PolyVista Alerts+ offers customized parameters, user permissions and a workflow feature that helps users view and manage historical alerts. That way, in the event of an audit, the application generates detailed audit trails for each different alert or product.

Let's not forget about the variety of PolyVista Alerts+ applications, either. PolyVista Alerts+ supports business managers in a number of areas, including:

• Product safety and compliance – Avoid regulatory compliance fines and ensure product safety by knowing when a risk might exist and address product safety concerns quickly.
• Warranty and quality – Stay up to date on whether or not consumers have concerns about various products and services and work to address these issues immediately.
• Customer experience (CX) and Voice of the Customer (VOC) management – Want to boost customer loyalty? Business managers will be able to collect and evaluate customer feedback and use it to explore innovative ways to bolster their companies’ products and services.

Ultimately, PolyVista Alerts+ can serve business managers in all industries, empowering them with the ability to improve their products and eliminate product quality and safety issues. And going forward, this tool could prove to be a key differentiator for businesses of all sizes. 

Summary

Business managers want first-rate tools they can use to reduce the chance that a defective product could reach consumers. Having the ability to minimize product quality and safety risks can help business managers eliminate the chance of CPSC fines and penalties and the resulting brand reputation damage and revenue losses that may follow.

PolyVista Alerts+ provides business managers with a best-in-class tool that takes the guesswork out of identifying and address product quality and safety issues. It ensures business managers will be able to find out if there are problems with a product and work toward making consistent product improvements. As such, PolyVista Alerts+ could deliver substantial value for many businesses both now and in the future.