Lilly Group offers mattress compliance certificate

Form required under new flammability guidelines

David Perry -- Furniture Today, October 30, 2008

ST. CHARLES, Ill. — The Lilly Management Group is offering a new certificate of compliance program designed to help U.S. mattress producers meet the requirements of a new Consumer Product Safety Commission standard regarding mattress flammability that takes effect Nov. 12.

The standard, the CPSC Safety Improvement Act of 2008, requires manufacturers to use a compliance certificate stating that their products meet CPSC safety standards. The certificates are required with every product shipment to retailers or distributors.

Lilly Management Group officials said their new program has been reviewed by the CPSC. The consulting firm's FR/PRO Certificate of Compliance Program provides manufacturers with electronic or paper certification forms for reporting correct and complete information on compliance with the new federal mattress flammability standard and the long-running cigarette ignition standard.

"LMG's certification forms enable a mattress producer to customize any prototype information, whether that producer used LMG prototypes, its own prototypes or those provided by a third party," said Bob Sabalaskey, LMG's vice president of manufacturing and product engineering. "A factory can also customize specific retailer or distributor information."

Lilly's program can be used on a permanent basis or can be implemented on a short-term basis to allow a manufacturer to buy time to develop its own internal automated system, Sabalaskey said.

"Either way," he said, "a manufacturer is covered prior to the federal deadline with a compliance form that captures all the required information for mattresses and mattress sets."

The Safety Improvement Act became law in August 2008, just over a year after the federal mattress flammability standard went into effect.

LMG has developed a number of programs to help the mattress industry meet that new standard. The company offers a range of services to producers, suppliers and retailers in the mattress industry.