The Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) unveiled the PPAI Promotional Products TurboTest online product safety tool at this week’s National Leadership Conference and Product Safety Summit in Denver, Colo.
With new legislation regarding product safety and compliance being passed regularly, the industry’s association recognized the need to cut through any confusion distributors or suppliers may have with regard to products, at both the national (e.g., CPSIA or FDA regulations) and state level.
TurboTest is a “right-on-time solutions-based tool that enables distributors and suppliers to provide products and services with confidence and assurance,” PPAI explained. Developed exclusively for industry professionals, TurboTest is currently only available for use by PPAI members and requires a UPIC number and password in order to gain online access.
TurboTest is easy to use, and acts as a “road map to compliance” by walking distributors or suppliers through a series of yes-or-no questions. With each answer given, TurboTest first helps users to determine if a product can be classified as a children’s product (which have the most stringent set of compliance laws under CPSIA) and then explains in easy-to-understand terminology what, if any, regulations must be adhered to for compliance to be met.
PPAI issued the below statement to Promo Marketing, explaining their goal in creating TurboTest. “It is our hope that TurboTest, along with other PPAI products, tools and education, will provide the promotional products industry, specifically distributors and suppliers, with the direction and clarity they need to assess and meet these product safety, social and environmental compliance challenges head on.”
The development for TurboTest was intense and lasted 18 months. PPAI enlisted a development committee of leading industry distributors and suppliers who also had compliance expertise. Gene Geiger, MAS, the CEO of Geiger, chaired the committee. Of his efforts, Anne Lardner-Stone, director of public affairs at PPAI, noted, “Gene kept the committee engaged and kept the process going” in order to bring an intuitive and intelligent tool to the industry.
Because the landscape of safety compliance is ever-changing, Lardner-Stone also stated that TurboTest will be updated regularly with any changing laws or regulations to ensure distributors and suppliers are accessing the most up to date information.
To give PPAI’s Promotional Products TurboTest a test drive visit, www.ppai.org/turbotest.
