In the second half of 2019, the company 3M will launch a comprehensive program for the protection of the brand, which will allow users to track non-genuine PPE trademarks of 3M.
Counterfeit protection do not meet the established technical requirements and do not perform their functions. Using PPE, workers receive occupational disease or serious injury even death, increasing the financial burden on businesses in connection with the hospital, insurance payments and fines decreases the production efficiency of enterprises.
Responsibility for the use of counterfeit products rests with each market participant. Employers must understand the risks and consequences of purchasing aftermarket products and manufacturers to be able to protect their brands and reputation.
The 3M Company for many years has been working to prevent counterfeit protection under brand 3M on the Russian market. This creates additional value for customers from the point of view of security, because only the original protection products meet all required quality requirements.
We are conducting explanatory work with end customers, we inform you how to distinguish counterfeit PPE, work with supply chain to ensure that products are supplied with 3M of good quality. 3M became the initiator and organizer of round tables on the topic of tools to protect producers and consumers from counterfeit on the market of PPE.
The situation with the counterfeits of famous brands today is complicated by the fact that the manufacturers of counterfeit products have learned to produce very credible products, which by their appearance normal user will not be able to identify.
In the first stage the most popular on the market of PPE - 10 RPD, will be marked with unique codes that can be check and track online with the help of SMS messages. In the future we plan to extend this program to all types of PPE. Also, to inform consumers about the program will be launched a special website that will host the detailed description of the program and useful information about the signs by which to distinguish a fake PPE 3M, about the risks of using aftermarket products, videos and photographs.
Leonid Zhukotsky, Director of the business group the Business and graphics company 3M, noted that “first and foremost task of the manufacturer — to create a quality product that meets stated technical qualities and requirements, and to protect their product, using unique materials, shape, marking. So, 3M has created a special protective coding for authentication products 3M Safe Guard™. This technical solution will be launched soon and will cover a range of products. Its application will help to determine and identify counterfeit goods at the stage of acceptance. Thus we not only protect our brand from counterfeit and our reputation as a responsible manufacturer, but also involve the consumers themselves, of representatives of occupational health services and end-users in the process. It is this global involvement is needed to build an effective system of countering the spread of counterfeit goods.»