Customer Value
Direct Import Product Testing
To offer our customers functional and/or unique and stylish products at competitive prices, and at favorable margins for the company, OfficeMax is increasingly looking to the global marketplace for products, including private label products.
The majority of imported products being added to our mix are manufactured in China and other Asian countries, regions that are industrializing at an incredibly fast pace. OfficeMax is sensitive to quality and safety concerns surrounding products manufactured in these regions, especially in light of high-profile recalls of products from some Chinese manufacturers.
In support of our supplier globalization strategy, OfficeMax enhanced our product testing program in 2006.
OfficeMax employs the services of third-party experts to perform two types of testing services: Product Quality Tests and Pre-Shipment Inspections. OfficeMax had been requiring Product Quality Tests at the very beginning of the product lifecycle for a number of years.
Product Quality Tests rigorously explore dozens of attributes pertaining to the safety and durability of the products, varying according to category. For example, it can take as long as five weeks to test one particular chair model. Following Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA) standards, a machine will put the chair through its paces, leaning it backwards thousands of times to gauge the integrity of the chair back – testing for both durability and safety. A similar method is used on the gas cylinder that raises and lowers the chair vertically.
Quality testing on writing instruments measures both safety and performance. Chemical tests are conducted on the paint from the pen’s barrel, the plastic of the barrel, and the ink in the pen. Each component must meet government regulations and industry standards. Pen caps are tested to ensure that air can pass through if a child accidentally swallowed the cap. Functional tests include ink writing performance on various materials, performance in different heat and pressure conditions, strength of the pen barrel, and analysis of skipping, among others.
Product Quality Tests have identified health and safety issues in a few cases. In each instance, OfficeMax’s Import Quality Department has worked with the supplier to resolve the issue before the product reached the intended customer. To the best of our knowledge, no incidents of noncompliance for heath and safety regulations occurred in 2007, on private label products shipped to the United States.
Pre-Shipment Inspections occur each time a private label product is shipped from an overseas vendor. These are primarily visual, quality-oriented tests to make sure our customers receive the best products possible. For example, a master carton of products may be dropped several times from prescribed heights, then opened and inspected to ensure that the tested product still matches the control sample.