[Vision Creates Value is delighted to
present Matt Reid's insightful interview.]
by Joe Geng
Matt Reid is a High
Performance Textiles Manager at DSM Dyneema. He has 20 years experience in the glove industry and Hand
Protection Authority.
Matt Reid
1.
Joe Geng
(JG): When you walk through a facility, what are the biggest mistakes you see
Safety Manager’s making with regard to their hand protection programs?
Mathiew Reid (MR): The biggest problem I see is overcompensation. Safety
Manager’s have too much information coming at them, so when it comes to gloves
they tend to go to the highest level of cut protection, ANSI level 5, even when
it is not needed or even desirable.
This is often not a good thing because cut level 5 gloves are often
stiff and inflexible, so they are choosing a glove that people simply won’t
wear. I actually saw this very recently
in a facility that was handling sheet metal.
The workers literally had the gloves in their pockets, and quickly put
them on when they saw the Safety Manager, because they literally could not do
their jobs with the gloves provided to them.
Safety Manager’s need to consider test results as one
reference point in their decision, but not trust blindly in the test results
alone. Choosing the right hand
protection for a facility needs to more be than simply a ‘checking the box’
exercise.
The best way to solve this is simply put more emphasis on
hand protection. Hand injuries are the
#1 preventable hand injury in the work place. In our Zero Excuses campaign we stress that something is obviously missing
if there are still millions of recordable hand injuries every year in this
economy. Some of those injuries are
traumatic and life altering. Often
Safety Managers feel that there is PPE and gloves, but that is the wrong
attitude. Gloves should be considered as
important a safety item as fall protection or respiratory protection. Safety Managers don’t need to be glove
experts but they should be knowledgeable enough to have a conversation with a
manufacturer about gloves, test methods, and hand protection in general.
2.
JG: What are
the best practices you see with regard to hand protection?
MR: The facilities that have Safety Professionals that
consider hand protection as important as other PPE items, and they get to know
Hand Protection such as standards, products, technologies, and the manufacturer’s
who are leading the way.
3.
JG: Who is
the best with regard to hand safety and what do they do?
MR: I think there is a lot of low hanging fruit here. Many
industries as a whole are not using the optimal choice of hand protection, and
leather is still the largest single type of glove style. Out of necessity the food processing industry
has been using high performance products for years and relatively speaking they
have some of the best control measures with “turn in a glove to get a glove”
and internal launder, but vending and tracking are showing up more often in
general industry and the controls are vastly improving. There is a lot of potential for vending
programs to really improve hand protection.
Facilities will be able to control safety costs by controlling misuse of
PPE, and in turn provide better quality hand protection for their employees.
I guarantee
8 of 10 companies are not controlling usage the way they should. Then, one day they wake up and realize they
are spending $300,000 on gloves.
4.
JG: What are
some of the worst practices you’ve observed?
MR: Double or
even triple gloving, which I’ve witnessed in an automotive plant. Those workers couldn’t even bend their
hands! This of course led to other
issues, such as compliance. We (Perfect
Fit) designed a Terry glove for them that had the same protection as 3 gloves
combined and 4x the flexibility.
I’ve also seen facilities use the
totally wrong material or fiber for the function. I once visited a food processing facility that
was using a basic standard-weight spun aramid glove. The cut performance was not adequate, laundering
the aramid based glove was difficult (not bleachable) and the durability was
not good.
5.
JG: If a
manufacturer was going to pay you $ 1 million dollars to reduce their hand
injuries to zero in one month, what would you do to get them there in a hurry?
MR: If there is no time to design a specific glove for the
application then I think it comes down to putting the resources in place for
intensive assessment, training, monitoring and incentivizing. Each position in the operation needs to be
fully assessed from safety perspective such as what are potential sources of
injury happen and what is the best product for the specific application. They
would also need specific training for each function based on those assessments
(ID the hazards, training needs to be often and repetitive and specific),
regular monitoring of use (are they wearing… how is product working, what could
be better) and then rewarding the team and individuals for adopting the program
into everyday thinking. Really those are
the basics of any good hand protection program, it would simply be a matter of
executing the basics really well.
6.
JG: What do
you think hand protection will be like in 5-10 years?
MR: I think the current trend of higher performance that is
lighter, more flexible, more comfortable will continue. I think you will see material technology
increase with smart materials, like materials that harden on
impact, inspired by Sea Cucumbers, or
gloves that can repair
themselves . Material science will drive hand protection
design and improvements.
I also think you will see even more of a merger with
performance hand protection and style, design, and more appealing look. Well deigned gloves help improve compliance
and reduce injuries.
7.
JG: What are
your favorite instructional resources on safety?
MR: Zero Excuses website of course! www.zero-excuses-protection.com. I tend to look at the individual websites of the market
leaders in the safety industry. There
are unique differences that you can pick up on with each individual
company. I also look at the Bureau of
Labor Statistics which breaks down injuries in the US by category of injury or
industry segment. My company is also
part of several Safety Industry related association or groups that keeps me
informed about standards, and general issues (ISEA, IGA, ANSI, EN388).
8.
JG: What are
your favorite gloves you had a hand (pun intended) in developing?
MR: We worked on extending the Junk Yard Dog line at Perfect
Fit (now Honeywell Safety). That was fun
because they are great gloves and had a strong brand name. I also really like the PF 570. At the time that glove was pushing the
boundaries of cut protection and fit.
9.
JG: If you
could eliminate one glove from the face of the earth which glove would it be?
MR: Leather gloves.
I’m just joking, sort of. Leather
gloves have their place but they are used in a lot of applications where they
really shouldn’t be. A lot of this is
because of historical influence, “this is the glove my Dad wore when he worked
here.” It also has a manly or mucho
image associated with it. There are
better options available today than leather gloves for most jobs.
::
Joe Geng
Vice President
Superior Glove
superiorglove.com
Vice President
Superior Glove
superiorglove.com
Published with Permission.
Acton, ON Canada
Edited and updated: 20151114
First published on Superior Glove Blog (www.superiorglove.com) on 2015 August 04.
Article Link: http://www.superiorglove.com/pages/blog/qas-we-can-all-learn-from/
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