When the eyes came off

It was Carina Ingelsten, an engineer and head of product development for soft toys, calling from a store in Finland. Just like Catti and others in their work group, the engineers used to visit stores in different countries before major events, like the upcoming opening of Children’s IKEA.

IKEA had already pre-launched some of the new soft toys in Helsinki, and they were now in big baskets inside the store. Carina spoke with a serious voice and said, “I have a GOSSE in my hand and an eye has come off!” “What?” Catti cried out, head of product development at Children’s IKEA at the time. “Put the phone down and give all the other eyes a pull.”

GOSSE was a small teddy bear, specially designed for Children’s IKEA. All parents should be able to afford a cute little bear for their children. But now GOSSE didn’t have any eyes, and Catti was initially paralysed with fear.

Safety first

Of all the risk scenarios Catti and IKEA had envisioned and tried to prevent, this was the worst. That an eye would come off when pulled and end up stuck in a child’s throat. During three years of preparations for Children’s IKEA, almost all small parts had been eliminated on children’s products. But soft toys needed their shiny little eyes, and very strict procedures were put in place for how they were stitched on and tested.

It didn’t take long for Cattis to snap out of her initial shock and spring into action. She alerted everyone involved and a major operation began. The soft toys were removed from stores, and co-workers were sent out to test different kinds of soft toys in stores and warehouses. Was it just this one batch that had a problem, or all of them?

“We showed Sweden and the world that IKEA took children’s safety very seriously.”

It soon became apparent that the problem lay with a factory in India, while soft toys made by IKEA suppliers in Thailand and Indonesia were up to standard. Catti and engineer Carina had visited the Indian factory themselves where GOSSE and other soft toys were being manufactured. At the time, the eyes were properly affixed on random samples. But there had clearly been a system failure, because now the eyes could be pulled off of most of them, although it took some strength.

Production was halted immediately, and Catti went on Swedish morning TV to recall the faulty products. “I took along several blue bags full of soft toys to show the viewers. I think that was our first major recall of a product. In retrospect I can also see a positive in it all – we showed Sweden and the world that IKEA took children’s safety very seriously.”

Looking ahead

Although the immediate crisis had been averted, Catti didn’t want the same thing ever to happen again. But surely you couldn’t make soft toys without eyes?

Someone suggested that IKEA should look at the industry as a whole, and co-workers in different countries were sent out to buy soft toys, from expensive to basic and everything in between. Around the world, IKEA co-workers were soon busy pulling and tugging at eyes, both big and small. A frightening number of them came off.

The team behind Children’s IKEA had assumed that the soft toys had to have small parts like eyes, that there was no alternative. “Then someone said maybe we could try embroidering eyes. No one had thought of that before!” says Catti. So she and the team got in touch with their very best soft toy supplier in Indonesia, and they immediately started experimenting with embroidered eyes. They created all kinds of amazing options, and many people thought they looked even nicer than glass or plastic eyes.

Attaching the eyes properly had felt like a hopeless challenge, but now all the glass and plastic eyes were removed and embroidered eyes were used instead. Slowly but surely, a lot of other soft toy producers did the same, and nowadays the vast majority of soft toys have embroidered eyes.

A successful launch

When Children’s IKEA was eventually launched in September 1997, children could enter the department on a slide and play with everything on the shelves. There were no longer any dangerous soft toys in the range. In the long term, the original loose eye incident led to even stricter child safety requirements at IKEA, an area where expertise was generally lacking in the 1990s.

Catti and IKEA had a zero tolerance approach to unsafe children’s products from the beginning, but now they started working even more proactively with new procedures and test methods.

Lessons from Children’s IKEA spilled over into the entire home and all IKEA departments. For instance, Catti Bengtsson started pushing for softer corners on all furniture in the range. “A lot of factories had their milling machines set to produce razor sharp corners on chairs and tables. We put a change to that,” says Catti.

Indian hearts

So what happened with that Indian factory where the procedures failed and the eyes didn’t stay on? The loss of a major order from IKEA could risk the entire company’s future. For a while, production was halted. Catti, who had met many of the 400 factory workers, felt that IKEA had a responsibility towards them and their families.

To continue the collaboration, a workgroup led by designer Anna Efverlund travelled to Delhi. Together, they developed a series of children’s pillows shaped like stars, moons, and a red hugging heart, which became a success. All without any sewn-on eyes that could fall off. “FAMNIG, the heart cushion with outstretched arms, is much loved and is still in the range today, so the story really did have a happy ending,” Catti concludes.