safe driving with brio toys!
Post on 09-Mar-2016
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Safe driving with BRIO toys!A roadmap to our quality demands, materials and production.
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More than a century of BRIO play BRIO’s history dates all the way back to
1884 when BRIO came up with the idea to
sell quality products. BRIO created its first
wooden toy, Osbyhästen, in 1907.
BRIO’s goal at the time was to produce toys
of the highest quality – and this is still our
top priority.
Then and now, our position is that children
of any size deserve to play with the best
products when it comes to materials,
design and imagination. And our employees
believe that it is always possible to do
yesterday’s tasks even better tomorrow.
We are also conservative. We do not
change things from one day to the next
without rigorous testing. This is to ensure
joyful play, proper design, durability –
and, above all, safety.
Many adults remember their BRIO toys.
That’s why we like to say that we create
happy childhood memories. And our
hope is that the children of today will ex-
perience BRIO in the same way that many
generations have done before them.
That’s when we know we have
succeeded.
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In the 1950s, the Ivarsson brothers (BRIO) started collaborating with SAS and the Swedish American ferry line. The airplanes were equipped with BRIO toys to allow the younger passengers to play while travelling. Together they held a competition for families with a flight theme. The three top prizes were flight tickets to go with 97 other prizes designed to attract participants. A separate competition was held among retailers. The first prize was flight tickets to Zurich with a visit to Franz Carl Weber, Europe’s largest specialty toy store.
The picture shows Helicopter from 1948, Duck from 1948 and a sports car from 1950.
Playroom picture from the late 1940s. Three children appear in the foreground playing with BRIO’s locomotive with green wheels and carriages from 1945 and a BRIO tractor from 1947.
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Wood is the heart and soul of our toys!
Beech
Wood: Beech is far and away the most frequently used ingredient across BRIO´s product range. Beech is ideal for producing toys. It is hard and very difficult to break. Additionally, beech is an ordinary wood species that is not endangered and is replaced, which is vital for us.
Some may call us old-fashioned
because we have held on to wood
as our most important material for
BRIO’s many toy models for more
than 100 years.
That’s just fine with us.
We believe that wood as a material is
timeless, very durable and naturally
appeals to children and adults alike.
And we believe we have a point.
New generations of children are just
as excited when they play with our
wooden toys as their parents were
before them.
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We test our toys meticulouslyAt BRIO we know that safety doesn’t
only come down to materials.
Children are creative in their use of
toys, and sometimes they may use the
products in ways that the designer
had not even considered when the
toys were on the drawing board. That’s
why BRIO takes a greater responsibility
than the law demands. One example is
that we perform load tests with more
pressure than the required amount.
Another example is that we carry out
drop tests from greater heights.
But above all, our vast experience
and insistence on producing proven
concepts provide a strong guarantee
for BRIO’s durability. Our toys have
been tossed, squeezed, hugged,
beaten, chewed and sucked on by
children for decades.
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5000 tests a year
BRIO complies with international toy standards for durability. Additionally, BRIO performs approx. 5000 toy tests and inspections every year during and after production. Two-thirds of them are performed by external experts.
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Safe choice of materialsThough wood is the foundation of
many of our toys, we also use several
other materials, for instance when
producing a train set (as shown on
the image).
Magnets and other metal parts
may be included to assemble the
carriages and enable them to
move. And we use paint to create
a smooth and durable surface. All
in all, we work with thousands of
different components across BRIO’s
entire range of toys.
The raw materials we use are sub-
ject to rigorous testing both before
and after the processing.
Additionally, we continuously take
random samples of the toys during
production and of the completed
products to secure that they comply
with the demands from the authori-
ties and our own quality standards.
InternatIonal rules and legIslatIon
BRIO complies with applicable law on safety and materials outlined in more than 40 different standards and legislative statutes. This includes mechanical, physical and chemical standards for toys, the REACH regulation for chemicals in consumer products, the RoHS regulation for electronic products and Azo-Dye for coloring of fabric, just to mention a few.
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Metal parts
All metal parts in our toys are subject to strict quality demands to secure that they will not fall off or put children in danger in any way. This also includes smudging and substance remnants that children should not be exposed to. For instance, in 2011 we decided to change all our metal parts in our toys going forward because the technology had made it possible to reduce the potential content of nickel in the new metal parts.
Paint: Approx. 80% water-based, 20% nitrocellulose-based. Tested in accordance with applicable law.
Metal: Steel with no nickel release.
Wood: European re-planted beech
Magnet: Ferrite magnets (iron magnets). All magnets are enclosed and fixed to prevent them from becoming loose.
Plastic: The plastic is completely non-toxic and made from the most frequently used plastics within toy production. Free from PVC and phthalate.
Mega Crane 33555
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Responsible productionBRIO’s many toy models are sold all
over the world. However, production
is confined to China and the Czech
Republic. We have had production
in Sweden for more than a century,
expanding to China in 2003 and
2006. Some of the machines used
in production in China are originally
Swedish, and the Chinese employees
work under the same safe conditions
as in Sweden.
When we select suppliers, we focus
on long-term deals with companies
capable of delivering proper quality,
and doing so in a responsible way.
Our wood components have been
delivered by the same supplier since
2004 and our plastic components have
mostly been delivered by the same
supplier since 1993. We regularly send
BRIO representatives out to our sup-
pliers to stay in touch and ensure high
quality on a continuous basis.
We demand that our suppliers follow
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the ICTI Care process, which is the
toy industry’s ethical manufacturing
program aimed at ensuring safe and
humane workplace environments for
toy factory workers worldwide. BRIO
collaborates with the suppliers to
make sure the ICTI Care process is be-
ing followed, and we perform annual
inspections and change processes
together with the suppliers. An ex-
ample of a change implementation is
that we have enabled our suppliers to
reschedule their production through
smarter production planning, thus
avoiding seasonal peaks and ensuring
a smoother workflow.
At BRIO we are aware that this pack-
aging should not harm the environ-
ment. Therefore we make sure our
packaging complies with applicable
law, and we have made deals with
authorized waste collection firms to
collect packaging for recycling in the
countries where this is possible.
At BRIO we have four ground rules:
•All our toys must be safe for children to use
•All our materials have to be of high quality
•All our toys must always adhere to regulations and laws
•All our productions have to take place under socially responsible conditions
Want to know more?
Follow us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/BRIOPlay and brio.net
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