Crown Products Applies for QCA Accreditation

Fortune 1000 customers are becoming more proficient at vetting their promotional products supply chains, and companies that do the best job of providing proactive, comprehensive compliance solutions can differentiate themselves in an industry where it is truly challenging to differentiate. This type of delineation allows companies to better meet their Fortune 1000 client needs, which results in enhanced relationships, greater confidence, growing trust and reliance, and ultimately in increased revenues.

The Quality Certification Alliance (QCA), the promotional product industry's only independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping companies provide safe products, introduced its comprehensive compliance program in 2009 to help suppliers capitalize on this opportunity. Since then, 18 companies have become QCA Certified and another 14 applicants are currently enrolled in the QCA Accreditation Program with Mobile, Alabama-based Crown Products Inc. being the newest applicant.

"Product safety is a critical differentiator among suppliers in today's market, and we take our commitment to product safety very seriously," said Bob Bickert, Crown Products president/general manager. "Through our extensive due diligence and research this past year, however, we realized that obtaining QCA Accreditation would bring us to a higher level of product safety and compliance than we could achieve on our own. Additionally, we will be able to not only improve our compliance by leveraging the knowledge and standards of the growing QCA Certified Suppliers that have gone before us but also participate in our customer's growing support of companies with QCA Accreditation. We are motivated and welcome the journey ahead for continuous improvement and QCA Accreditation."

Crown Products has begun the initial self-certification phase, which is followed by a rigorous self-assessment. Once these are complete, the company then submits its headquarters and supply base to multiple third-party audits. Finally, the QCA board uses a scorecard representing the performance of the applicant and its supply chain on the third-party audits as the foundation for granting accreditation.