Mattel’s Toy Recalls and Supply Chain Management Essay

This out stupefy talks focuses on the event in the year of 2007 when Mattel the threesomeing global toy dogmaker voluntarily recalled its toys from landwide stores. Mattels name is same worldwide for its most famous harvest the Barbie Doll. The recall was initially for 83 toys which had inordinate give out paint and soon by and by 6 more products we recalled which had a rule puzzle of small magnets coming morose the toys in addition to the use of lead paints. The lead that was used could potentialityly be toxic for children and the magnetic parts that could come off the toys could potentially be smutty for the digestive systems of children if ingested. All the toys recalled were manufactured in china and in total more than 1.5 gazillion toys were called back. The initial diagnosis was that the principal(prenominal) cause of the problem was Made in chinaware however the scale explores that the calm wipe out causes for the default were defective programmes.Ba ckground Mattel & China* China had become the leading manufacturing bank line of toys by 2000 * 80 % of toys coming to US were manufactured in China* 65% of Mattel toys were produced in China* Most Chinese toys were make in about 5000 factories locate in Guangdon province in China. These factories were majorly possess by Hong KongMattels Supply trainMattels product fell into ii broad buckets. First was the inwardness products similar Barbie dolls which sold through longer periods and the flash bucket comprised of the non-core products which comprised of seasonal toys like photograph characters. By 2007, more than half of the revenues for Mattel came from core products that were manufactured in Mattel owned plants in china. The remaining products which were procured from local Chinese accredited marketers. Mattel had an inspection program in belongings for its products. Off the 5000 products that it used to develop each(prenominal) year, it would randomly sort out pro ducts by victorious them off the production line.In mold to sum up paint to Mattels supply chain a vendor had to be a certified one. The complication with this position was that on m some(prenominal) occasions Mattels direct vendors pay offed down to an other(a)(prenominal) suppliers who in turn contracted to other suppliers and thus the origin of certain products were touchy to trace for example the lead paint. regular though Mattel had not allowed its vendors to sub contract to other vendors without its permission, it was not sure how sanitary Mattels suppliers were adhering to this. Ironically, 200 of Mattel quality and vendor assurance employees were located far away(predicate) from the production facilities in Hong Kong. As a good HR practice Mattel had engage a professor with international written report for creation a critic of role player treatment to report independently of any malpractices in Mattel. Reasons leading to the event* Pressures on Chinese toy man ufactures.Most toy sales were coming from big boxwood stores like Walmart, Tar compass etc. The business model of these big retailers revolves around extremum cost pressures. This led to a attracter of bargaining with Chinese manufacturers to cut down their costs. At the similar time, the Yuan had comprehended and increasing costs of raw materials (such as fuel costs) left little fashion for Chinese manufactures to invest in significantly progressive quality programs.* Manufacturing ProblemsLead in paint was a frequently occurring problem for toy manufacturers. Even though Chinese manufacturers had put processes in place that had checks to vitiate having lead in the paints, it was increasingly vexed to monitor the quality of paints* Design ProblemsIn 2007 many toy products had small magnetic parts attached to them which could potentially get detached from the toys and then they could be accidently be ingested by the children. These magnets, once inside the digestive system we re toxic and could potentially fuck off together and harm the intestines. Another design problem was that some of the toys were susceptible to being broken. Most of the designs were do outside China and thus this was not a manufacturing problem.* merchandise MisuseSome recalls of Mattels products were because of the potential misuse by children. There were throttling or strangling hazards associated with some of the products that made the products dangerous.Mattels ResponseThe expected meeting of Mattels recalls was to the tune of $30 million dollars which was about half of the operating income of that quarter. The media reporting and global attention aggravated the issue. In order to deal with this Mattels receipt was as follows.* Three spirit level check systemAs the first point check for the lead paint either batch of paint could only be acquired from certified vendors. Second, the controls for vendors and contractors were made more stricter and random checks were consti tuted. Thirdly, the finished products would be subjected to final checks in the lead they reach the customers* Sub contracting policiesMattel reviewed its subcontracting policies to control excessive subcontracting* Purchase of red-hot equipment to detect leadMattel in somaticd a plan to purchase more lead detectors* PR & CommunicationsThe company followed a proactive communication strategy to lecture the issue.ConclusionThe consumers reacted strongly to Mattels response. The case elaborates how systemic failures can almost cripple a global leader. Most importantly, the made in china brand woolly-headed significant reputation because of this episode. However, better measures and corporate controls resulted from this event and they eventually transformed the manufacturing world for the better.