Companies are implementing more systematic, collaborative, and consistent processes for product quality, safety, and compliance across their supply chain, supported and enabled by MetricStream
PALO ALTO, Calif., March 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — In the midst of widespread product safety issues and recalls, as well as increasing regulatory requirements, leading retail and Consumer Product Goods (CPG) companies are taking proactive steps to improve their product quality, strengthen product stewardship, and ensure safety and compliance with the help of MetricStream. These companies have adopted robust product risk assessment and mitigation strategies to prevent product safety issues, while also implementing comprehensive controls to comply with regulations such as CPSIA, REACH, RoHS, California Proposition 65, the EU Toy Directive, the British Standards, and the China GB Standards.
MetricStream Product Quality, Safety, and Compliance Management solution is supporting these companies by providing a single point of reference to streamline, manage, and track end-to-end product quality, safety, and compliance processes across the supply chain. The solution cuts across enterprise silos, integrating all product and supplier information, as well as testing requirements, regulations, risks, audit findings, non-conformances, and corrective actions in a federated ecosystem that promotes transparency. Built-in dashboards and reporting capabilities provide a single, real-time "source of truth" on all product quality metrics, stewardship parameters, safety, and compliance risks and trends across the enterprise, enabling management to make informed and data-driven decisions.
With multiple states across the U.S. planning to introduce product safety regulations, retail and CPG organizations will soon have to balance both federal and state regulatory compliance challenges. The consequences of non-compliance include costly recalls and lawsuits which can lead to a loss of public trust, blocked shipments, expensive re-designs, and scrapped products.
To effectively manage these risks and regulations, leading retail and CPG companies are moving away from the more traditional approach of simply collating all relevant product documentation from their suppliers, and are instead adopting a more traceability based integrated and automated approach to supplier and product information management, as well as product testing, compliance, risk, and audit management.
MetricStream Product Quality, Safety, and Compliance Management Solution is supporting leading Retail and CPG companies in a variety of ways. The solution offers a centralized, Web-based repository to manage all supplier information, as well as data around products and product composition, materials, and chemicals. It enables companies to design and conduct hazard, risk & failure mode analyses to proactively identify and mitigate product quality risks. It also streamlines product safety and stewardship policies and compliance management workflows, and supports certification management (GCC, CPC).
Through the solution, organizations can manage the entire product testing lifecycle, and integrate with third-party testing labs to import findings and results. They can also plan, manage, and track quality inspections and audits. All non-conformances and preventive and corrective action can be managed in a systematic manner. In addition, all quality and safety regulations can be mapped to the appropriate product risks, controls, policies, quality checks, and inspections, as well as suppliers, sub-suppliers, factories, and product components. These inter-linkages help companies quickly trace any quality, safety, or compliance issue back to the source.
"We are excited to partner with, and support retail and consumer product companies around the world as they take the initiative to strengthen their product quality, safety, and compliance programs," said Keri Dawson, Vice President, Industry Solutions and Advisory Services at MetricStream. She continued, "These companies have chosen MetricStream because of the transparency, accountability, and structure that the solution brings to an otherwise complex and opaque maze of product risks and regulatory compliance requirements. By providing a single automated system to manage risks and regulations, companies can more effectively manage and grow their business and protect their reputation amongst stakeholders."
About MetricStream
MetricStream is a market leader in enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Management Solutions for global corporations. MetricStream solutions are used by leading corporations such as UBS, Barclaycard US, P&G, Constellation Energy, Pfizer, Philips, United Technologies Corporation, SanDisk, Cummins, and Autogrill in diverse industries such as Financial Services, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Energy and Utilities, Food, Retail, CPG, Government, Hi-tech and Manufacturing to manage their risk management programs, quality processes, regulatory and industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance initiatives, as well as several million compliance professionals worldwide via the www.ComplianceOnline.com portal. MetricStream is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at www.metricstream.com.
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