Earlier this year, the toy industry knew it had a big problem: tough new product-safety rules barreling down the regulatory turnpike, and most toy businesses too small to manage compliance with those rules well.
So, like the band of heroes in Pixar’s animated film “Toy Story,” the businesses united to answer a common challenge.
Their solution was an industry-led certification program to establish consistent product-quality rules via auditable assessments of product design, manufacture, and testing. Launched in February, the program is intended to forestall looming new government regulations and revive toymakers’ battered reputations after the tainted-product scandals of 2007.