Simply put, flammability will be the largest change to affect our industry in its history. All vendors must comply with the upcoming Federal Open Flame Standard. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published the new federal open-flame mattress standard March 15th, 2006 in the Federal Register. The standard itself becomes effective as to mattresses made or imported after July 1, 2007. The time to be designing and testing your products to ensure compliance with this new standard is NOW!!

16 CFR 1533 requires that each facility have a fully functional Quality Assurance program with inspections of raw materials, methods / work in process and finished goods.  In addition there are very specific recordkeeping requirements that include detailed lot tracking of raw materials used and labeling of your products.  The recordkeeping requirements of this standard are going to be at least as difficult, if not more difficult to comply with, than the prototypes themselves.

Whether you've chosen your FR Solution already or you are starting from scratch, Big Sky Bedding Consulting can help you.  We work with all FR barrier suppliers and can guide you through the process of selecting your vendor, developing your prototypes and scheduling your testing.  If you've already chosen your FR package and are comfortable with the testing process then we can help you with the quality assurance, recordkeeping and in factory training.  All key factory methods are taught to your factory level employees and the training materials are available in multiple languages. Proper control over your manufacturing processes will be the key to producing beds that will consistently pass 16 CFR 1633.

Big Sky Bedding's Flammability Package is designed to provide you with a fully customized QA program.  A program designed specifically to take into account your materials, your methods, your personnel.  We will train your personnel on how to use the program and all forms will be customized to your materials.  All raw material and in process tolerances will be right on the inspection forms allowing just about anyone to perform the required inspections.

Big Sky Bedding can help you with a solution to create proper lot control regardless of your size.  The new standard requires "law tags" with specific prototype information and you must be able to trace back from the actual product to the materials and vendor certifications used to build that specific product.

"When was the last time you physically inspected your 16 CFR 1632 Cigarette Ignition Records?"  You can be absolutely certain that the CPSC inspectors will be checking these records while they are inspecting for the new open flame standard.  Big Sky Bedding Consulting can examine your records for compliance and point out any areas of concern or non compliance.  Give yourself time to correct the records if they are not compliant.

Is all of this confusing? Not sure where to start? Call Big Sky Bedding Consultants. We can help.