Mattel’s Toy Recall

From March 2006 till October 2007 trouble started for Mattel and its Chinese toy suppliers. Mattel recalled toys from worldwide for two significant reasons: high led-content paint or potentially hazardous level of lead within the material, and toy contain small, powerful magnet could dislodge or swallowed.

The company has a policy for preventing this issue and provide safe paint, but Mattel decided to ignore his policy and use wrong paint. The company also ignores the error and fail to take proper care of quality control and inspected his manufacturer to avoid it. The company could avoid the issue through training and educate both his employees and his third-party company to teach the requirement for the quality standard. The government should increase their regulation for the manufacturer to stop this kind of issues.

Mattel response was appropriate, and the company took all the necessary steps to keep people safe plus informing the public regarding the issue. They launched a video on Yahoo’s website to apologize from parents. The company provides the list of the certified supplier to his third-party manufacturer to purchase the paint from them or to test the paint before using it to ensure the quality standard. The company reassured his customer for producing safe products and taking full responsibility for the recall. The company’s new policies required all suppliers to conduct a quality test on all their incoming materials and finished toys. Mattel creates a Corporate Responsibility division to be accountable internally and externally for the company’s safety and compliance procedure (Mattel Annual Report, 2007).

Mattel and Early Light need to coordinate and collaborate with each other. Their objective should be improving their operating efficiency, quality and customer service over collaboration to have a competitive advantage for the supply chain partners and cheaper products for the consumer. They need to build the trust which is critical for their success with each other. The Trust will have led collaboration happened. Since these two-company doing business together for more than fifteen years, Mattel should continue to use Early Light as his supplier partner. The relationship between these two company creates enough value to become a partner.  Since they collaborate with each other, they share information and pooling their resources to achieve their objectives. It will impact Mattel to select his foreign suppliers who follow the Mattel policies and procedure to assure safety and satisfying customers.

I don’t think anything needs to be added to GMP, but Mattel needs to make sure all the suppliers followed the GMP principles that launched in November 1997. ICCA needs to make sure all GMP’s requirements met by Mattel and his manufacturing facilities. ICCA provides his report to Mattel so that correction will be made. ICCA needs to do his investigation more often and check all GMP’s requirements are in place and followed.

Six Sigma requires a commitment from the organization. By implementing Six Sigma firm agrees to meet costumers’ expectation which is the overriding Six Sigma objectives. It is about pleasing customers so the quality can be the customers’ satisfaction. To meet customer satisfaction management, need to identify their industrial customer, provide the tools and requirements, setting out design, modify or improve their process to meet the requirements. The management need also expands their competition and cutting their costs, find new customers to improve their profit and have a strong desire to practice Six Sigma and another quality improvement for the company. There is need of leadership, commitment and deciding which employees are dedicated to this implementation and not whoever available for the project. The company needs to know the requirement for successful implementation instead of rushing to it.

There are other recalls other than this case like Kids II recalls Oball Ratters due to choking hazard, The RC2 Corporation recalled Thomas and Friends train set due to high-level lead-based paint, Moose toys recalls toy frog due to chemical and injury hazards, and these toys manufactured in China. There are lots of recalls of toys and other stuff where China or other countries like the USA are involved.

There are toys recalls on Mattel website: Fisher-Price announcement to fix or replace four products, North America (The US and Canada), and global recall and safety alert. The company strategies are safety toys for children with high standard. The company has internal product safety procedures which design to meet or exceed regulation and laws enforced by U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

References:

(n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://www.sixsigmadaily.com/what-are-common-challenges-when-implementing-six-sigma-in-organizations/

Carando, G. (1970, January 01). Mattel Toy Recall. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://psucomm473.blogspot.ca/2007/10/mattel-toy-recall.html

Eric Walker, Chef Follow. (2014, December 06). Mattel presentation. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from https://www.slideshare.net/EricWalker6/mattel-presentation-42429784

Figueroa, R. (2014, October 03). Mattel Case Study. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from https://prezi.com/npgyydgk7i9g/mattel-case-study/

Mattel, I. (2008, January 17). Independent Monitor Releases Audit Report of Four Mattel Manufacturing Plants. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/independent-monitor-releases-audit-report-of-four-mattel-manufacturing-plants-57074602.htm

Wisner, J. D., Tan, K., Keong Leong, G. (2012). Supply chain management: a balanced approach (3rd ed.) (pp.278-284). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.