SAI Global Announces Alliance with Personal Care Products Council to Create First Industry-Wide Cosmetics Supplier Assessment Program

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio, Nov. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SAI Global announces a strategic business partnership with the Personal Care Products Council. This partnership is a solution to a growing need in the personal care and cosmetics industry – to improve and enhance the operations for suppliers and manufacturing facilities.

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Randall Boyle, SAI Global's Vice President of Corporate Development, says of the partnership: "SAI Global is strategically positioned as a unique and full-service solutions provider to be able to build a customized supplier management program for the personal care and cosmetics industry. The needs for supplier assessment and quality assurance are unique to this industry. The program that our organizations have built together supports this effort and reflects this uniqueness."

Joanne Nikitakis, Senior Cosmetic Chemist at the Council, explains, "Audit fatigue is a serious issue for personal care manufacturing facilities.  These audits cost time and money for both the company being audited and its customers."

SAI Global's Personal Care Manufacturing Assessment Program (PCMAP) was designed in conjunction with the council, and addresses the specific needs of the cosmetics industry. The program is a customized supplier training and assessment program designed to assist cosmetic and personal care product manufacturers and suppliers with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) that adhere to principles of product quality and safety.

PCMAP is based on widely-accepted international standard ISO 22716, Cosmetics Good Manufacturing Practices, which provides guidelines relating to the production, control, storage and shipment of cosmetic products. The program is unique in that it also incorporates key elements of ISO 9001 as well as multiple risk level categories where suppliers may be evaluated based on the perceived risk level of the product or component provided. With the objective to reduce wasteful, redundant auditing, the industry recognizes that assessments based on ISO standards will enable both suppliers and their customers to focus on creating the innovative and effective products consumers demand.

Customized public and onsite PCMAP training has been developed to help individuals understand, implement and audit the program. SAI Global is launching two initial training courses in December 2011 to educate the industry on program elements. The PCMAP assessments will be piloted in December, with full roll out planned for January 2012.

The first course offered by SAI Global is PCMAP – Understanding and Implementing Course. This 2 day interactive training course will describe essential components required to implement a quality and safety management system that ensures the proper production, control, storage and shipment of cosmetic products. This course not only complies with new GMP requirements in the EU, but also builds an effective management system infrastructure that is based on the internationally recognized ISO 22716 standard. The first course will be offered publically in the Cleveland, Ohio area on December 20-21, 2011.

The second Training class available is PCMAP – Auditing Course. This 2-day auditor course provides attendees with practical and challenging tasks on how not only to audit and comply with the new GMP requirements and achieve ISO 22716 certification, but more importantly to ensure an effective quality management system infrastructure exists to exceed and meet customer expectations. Guidelines provided by the Council are a key input to this training, which includes valuable insight to the expectations by the Council as well as the certification body. The fist class will be held in Somerset, New Jersey on January 19-20, 2012.

The courses can also be privately conducted at any facility for a group of employees that require this training. In-house training can provide substantial cost savings depending on the number of class attendees, and can be customized to focus on specific points for your organization.

Company Profile:

SAI Global helps organizations manage risk, achieve certification and drive improvement by providing training, registration audits, and supplier management programs that can improve business performance. With more than 800 auditors and 24,000 registrations worldwide, we are a global leader committed to exceptional customer service and advancing business excellence.

SAI Global is focused not only on evaluating business practices against a standard, but also on understanding how compliance with those standards can improve the operations of our customers. SAI Global auditors are industry veterans with years of experience in the sectors they serve, enabling them to interpret the standards precisely.

SAI Global Training and Improvement Solutions specializes in offering a range of innovative learning approaches and tool-based solutions to enable both individuals and organizations to achieve key objectives.

Description page: http://www.saiglobal.com/assurance/personal-care-cosmetics/

CONTACT: Elvira Cameriere, +1-201-210-8115, [email protected]

SOURCE SAI Global