Quality and Safety Practices at LEGO

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Excerpts

LEGO's building bricks came in different colors and sizes. There were eight basic colors of bricks - red, blue, white, yellow, green, black, light grey, and dark grey - although there were about 55 variations of these colors. LEGO also had transparent and dual-tone bricks. The basic LEGO bricks came in three sizes - the eight stud brick, the six stud brick, and the four stud brick...

Quality Management Quality formed the core of LEGO's production activities. On its website, LEGO stated its Quality Policy as follows: "Our aim at the LEGO Group is to exceed customer expectations with regard to our products, service, and their experience of the LEGO brand. Quality is firmly rooted in our fundamental beliefs, our mission statement, our strategic goals, and our values. As a world leader in the field of quality experience, service, and products, we focus on the customer's perception of quality. Quality procedures are specified in our global quality management system. We view the implementation of this policy as the shared responsibility of all LEGO employees."...

Given that LEGO toys were used by children, the company followed strict safety standards. As with its quality practices, LEGO not only adhered to the safety regulations specific to each of the markets it operated in, but ensured that all safety regulations were followed in all markets, regardless of where the toy had been manufactured...

Monitoring activities related to maintaining regular checks on the entire supply chain to see that there were no deviations from established safety standards. The company required its suppliers to adhere to the same high standards that it followed. All the suppliers were required to check the physical and chemical properties of the raw materials they shipped to LEGO, and certify that all the requisite tests had been carried out satisfactorily. Regular inspections of production were also carried out by LEGO's Corporate Quality Control Department...

Although LEGO was one of the most successful toy companies in the world, a major concern for the future was increased competition. LEGO's last patent had expired in 1998 (the patent for the bricks had expired in 1981), and the company had not been allowed to renew the patent because the brick design was a functional form...

Exhibit I: LEGO's Products
Exhibit II: Financial Highlights
Exhibit III: Specifications of LEGO Bricks
Exhibit IV: The Making of a LEGO Brick

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