Lilly group program aims to simplify FR compliance
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, July 23, 2006
St. Charles, Ill. — A fire-resistant mattress program offered by an industry consulting group aims to take the complexity out of a new federal mattress flammability standard.
That U.S. standard, which goes into effect July 1, 2007, poses a series of challenges for mattress producers, some of which still have a lot of work to do before meeting that standard, suppliers of FR materials caution.
The new program draws on years of FR experience on the part of executives of the Lilly Management Group, the team that brought the first open-flame protected mattress line to the national market at Serta in early 2005.
Now that team — Ed Lilly, Susan Ebaugh and Bob Sabalaskey — says it is getting a good response to an FR program it offers that draws on the expertise of several FR suppliers.
Lilly Management Group's FR-PRO Prototyping Program offers manufacturers pre-packaged solutions to meet the federal standard "at a significant savings over what it would cost to do it themselves," the group said.
The program has been approved by Underwriters Laboratories. It offers manufacturers their choice of FR solutions from suppliers like Western Nonwovens, Jones Fiber, Milliken & Co., Freudenberg Nonwovens, W.T. Burnett, Precision Fabrics Group and Hickory Springs.
LMG says its new program can help ease the compliance burden for manufacturers and help them save time and money.
"We know what works and what doesn't, and our objective is to share that experience with those members of the industry that want to be ready for the regulation with ease, efficiency and economy," LMG officials said. "The many FR suppliers that have committed to the program share our objective to offer a range of tested and approved solutions — both inherent and non-inherent — that together offer the entire industry a simpler, easier path to compliance."
Manufacturers need only perform one confirmation burn of each qualified prototype in their selected FR line before creating their actual product lines, LMG officials said.
Along with their selection of a complete, qualified prototype or prototype groups, and additional prototypes from other core groups as needed, manufacturers participating in the program also receive:
-
An "easy to understand" summary of the federal open- flame standard.
-
The opportunity to attend burn tests.
-
Complete record-keeping for all qualified prototypes, plus guidance through the confirmation burn process.
-
Access to new FR solutions that will be tested and qualified.
Sabalaskey said LMG is aiming to merchandise and build multiple FR product lines that represent any bed a mattress manufacturer might need locally or nationally.
He is one of the mattress industry's most experienced FR experts. From 2003 to 2005, he burn-tested nearly a thousand mattresses and hundreds of bed constructions and FR components.
All that work ultimately helped Serta become the first national mattress manufacturer to be compliant with the mattress flammability standard now in effect in California.
The federal standard uses a similar test criteria to the one used in California, but includes other provisions that make it a more complex standard for producers to meet, according to LMG officials.
-
Lilly group sets turnkey FR program
Jun 11, 2006 -
LMG's Lilly shares views on FR, green issues
Dec 14, 2008 -
Mock bedding plant inspections check FR compliance
Sep 16, 2007
Featured Company
-
FurnitureCore.com
FurnitureCore.com is a dynamic web application aimed at the furniture industry. Retailers and manufacturers alike will find our deep reserve of tools to be exactly what their furniture business needs.www.furniturecore.com... more
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
