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Made in USA Policy Statement |
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Introduction:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) publishes guidelines for businesses who wish to
label products with "Made in the USA". As an active manufacturer in the United States,
we researched the FTC's policy with a goal of applying it to Imagine Instrument's products.
In order to apply this to our company, it's important to understand the scope of our
manufacturing process for products we will label "Made in the USA" or "Designed & Assembled in the USA"
and to understand our interpretation of the FTC's policy. Please read below what we're doing and how
their policy applies.
Imagine Instrument's Company Goal:
Our goal is that we keep our core design, development, and manufacturing of products in the United States.
After completing the design and development phase on a new product we review and
consider the most appropriate manufacturing process concurrent with the product's design.
With such goals we must be able to build what we design and have the ability to source both domestic
and foriegn components to be compeditive.
The Federal Trade Commission Guidelines:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has offered guidelines for complying with
the Made in the USA Standard. Making an unqualified claim of Made in the USA means
that the entire product (labor, raw materials, and components) is made in the USA.
For Imagine Instruments, and almost every other US manufacture this claim is nearly impossible to
make since electronic components come
from Asia; however, the FTC's alternative - a "qualified Made in the USA claim" - may
be applied to specific Imagine Instrument's products which have undergone a substantial transformation
from their raw material state to be a finished product.
A qualified claim is accompanied with an explanation. For example, a product may be
"Assembled in the USA from domestic and foreign-supplied components" or it may involve
a significant amount of labor to transform it from the component level to a finished good.
There's no clear threshold from the government to help a US company determine when to make a qualified claim about
being "Made in the USA".
Our current "Made in the USA" labeling policy:
Due to the fact that is almost impossible to source from the United States all components needed to develop and
manufacture a product, Imagine Instruments will use the following statement on on specification sheets, manuals and product labeling for all of it's proprietary products.
"This prodcut has been Designed, Developed and Assembled in The USA from both Domestic & Foreign parts"
This statement will only be used if atleast 51% of all components come from the United States, a major
trasformation from the raw material state has taken place and all assembly of the finished product was done by domestic labor.
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