The Quality Certification Alliance (QCA), the promotional products industry’s only independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping companies provide safe products, has awarded accreditation to two additional suppliers:
- Miami-based Bullet Line, LLC
- New York-based Garyline
These firms join the ranks of 13 companies that previously have met the qualifications to achieve QCA Accreditation—Avaline, Barton Nelson Inc., BDA Inc., BroderBros, Dard Products Inc., Fanda Enterprises Inc., dba PromoFactory, Gemline, Gordon Sinclair, Leed’s, Logomark Inc., MMI, Prime Line and Sweda Company LLC.
“In early 2009, we realized the need to formally document our product safety best practices and decided to apply for the QCA Accreditation Program,” said Gary Hellinger, founder and CEO of Garyline. “The process has helped all our key employees, supervisors and factory workers embrace the concept and achieve the goal of becoming QCA Certified, which is one of the most important achievements in our company history.”
Because distributors are becoming more selective due to the heightened scrutiny coming from their end-user clients, suppliers are responding by becoming more proactive at taking steps to implement compliance programs that deter and detect unsafe products.
As a result, two more suppliers—Philadelphia-based Bodek and Rhodes and Grand Island, New York-based Starline USA Inc.—have applied to participate in the accreditation program developed by QCA.
“Product safety and compliance have always been a very important part of the Bodek and Rhodes culture,” said Hal Rhodes, vice president of purchasing. “Throughout the past year, we have monitored the progress QCA has made and took a long look at its Accreditation Program. With the growing recognition and support of both distributors and their end-user clients, we felt the timing was right for us to begin the accreditation process and join this group of industry leaders in establishing QCA as the industry benchmark for compliance programs.”
Daniel A. Norris, Starline president, added, “Compliance can be a complicated topic, which can be evidenced by the increased frequency our sales team continues to be asked about compliance solutions. QCA offers the only comprehensive process accreditation for safety and compliance in our industry, and we felt it appropriate to be on the leading edge of the compliance effort and ramp up our ability to meet our client needs for delivering safe product.”
Brent Stone, QCA executive director–operations, concluded, “Supplier companies of all sizes are responding to the challenges and opportunities that come as part of the product safety and compliance movement by growing their client solutions. As a result, we are now seeing the first non-founding QCA applicants successfully completing the QCA Accreditation Program.”
For more information, visit www.qcalliance.org.
