New ISO standards for product safety and recall

New ISO standards have been released for Consumer Product Safety (ISO 10377) and Consumer Product Recall (ISO 10393).

These two new ISO Standards provide practical guidance to suppliers of consumer products in assessing and managing the safety of their products, from the design of the product to the final product end user as well as consumer product recalls and other corrective actions after the product has left the manufacturing facility.

ISO 10377 and ISO 10393 aim to foster improved consumer safety and seamlessly interoperate with GS1 standards in many areas, including the requirements for globally unique product identification, supply chain traceability and multi-jurisdictional product recall.

“The new standard places a strong emphasis on understanding risk, good communication and being able to monitor the effectiveness of the recall through a variety of measures,” said Steve Hather, Managing Director of RQA Product Risk Institute and leading member of the International Working Group that developed the ISO 10393 standard.

“The difference between an effective product recall and a crisis that can cost millions of dollars and threaten the survival of a consumer goods company comes down to four key elements - investigation, assessment, strategy and communication. Get these elements right and the chances of a recall escalating into a crisis are very much reduced. The new standard places a heavy emphasis on these areas and is why we have created training courses that focus on these key elements,”

The standards were developed in parallel and with the contribution of GS1 Australia and RQA Product Risk Institute. The two organisations will host a series of web-based presentations about how the new standards will benefit businesses by improving consumer product safety and the management of product recall events.