Understanding cut hazards: How to choose the right hand protection

Fred: [00:00:02] Good morning, all, and welcome. My name is Fred Crosley, director of business Development for Canadian Occupational Safety. And I'm so pleased to be introducing a very special live webinar presented by Superior Glove. Hand injuries remain the number one preventable, preventable industrial accident worldwide, with over a third of them involving cuts. Often hand injuries occur because workers are simply wearing the wrong hand protection for cut hazards, their role, or even worse, no hand protection at all. With countless work glove options available in the market, how do you choose the right cut hazard hand protection for your workers? We are joined by Shane Nider hand safety specialist for Superior Glove. Shane has more than 17 years of experience working in industrial safety, focusing on providing PPE to the oil and gas industries and construction industries. Shane, thanks so much for being here, man, and I'll hand it over to you.

Shane: [00:01:05] Yeah, thanks, Fred, and good day, everybody. As Fred mentioned, my name is Shane Nider Hand safety specialist with Superior Glove. We appreciate you joining today's webinar. We're excited to spend the next hour or so with you today discussing the topic of hand safety and specifically resistance and cut performance and really understanding those hazards and what levels to choose and when those risks might be present. And one of the things I like most about these webinars is that Q&A session at the end. We always learn so much from you folks. So there's going to be that Q&A chat box on the right of your screen there. So we absolutely encourage you to put your questions in there and we should have enough time today to get through all of those. So yeah, absolutely. I encourage you to throw your questions in there and we'll have some open Q&A at the end. You'll also shortly after the webinar, you'll receive a follow up email from Superior Glove, and it will just have some of the information that we're sharing today. It'll also include my contact information, and I absolutely welcome you to reach out to Superior Glove at any time, and we're happy to support any of your hand safety initiatives. Just before we get into the main part of the presentation today, I just wanted to give you all an overview of who we are and what we do, although I'm sure you've guessed by now from our name that we manufacture safety gloves and we've been doing this for a long time, over 100 years since 1910. So we have distribution across the globe. We're a lead innovator in the hand safety category. And really that innovation is a core value of our innovation is really in everything that we do. And it's really our obsession with solving problems in the hand protection category that's led us to have one of the broadest offerings of hand protection offerings on the market today. So there's absolutely no shortage of options. We have a glove for just about every application you could imagine, no matter how many, how unique, how extreme. And so definitely no shortage of options. And sometimes on the market, there's too much options. And that's what we want to sort of do today is break down how to select the right PPE based on those applications. And one thing we always say, too, is we don't want to over protect. You know, we do get that question a lot. Well, I'll just go straight to the highest level of performance and then I'm covered. And there's some drawbacks with that. When we over protect the products can be a little bit cumbersome, they can be bulky. They just may not be practical for that work. So it's really about finding the right glove for the application. And we do get that question a lot to what is what is the right glove. And so the answer to that really is the one that workers will wear, because as Fred mentioned, most hand injuries really take place when the glove is not on the hand. So just by having the glove on the hand increases or reduces the probability of a hand injury and then from there choosing the right PPE for the application. And hand protection is really made leaps and bounds over the last few years. The innovation into some of the yarns, the technology products are more dextrous, their lighter, they're more breathable, they're less cumbersome. And so the days of big bulky gloves impeding work are sort of far and few between. And there's a lot of new innovation that you can get that high level of performance or the appropriate level of performance without compromising on comfort or safety dexterity. And so that's a bit about who we are. So and Fred touched on this as well, Hand injuries are the number one preventable accident in the workplace. They're the number one to injury next to backs. But backs are kind of hard back injuries are kind of hard to prevent. I mean, I could just be sitting here in my chair, I could move the wrong way and I could tweak my back. So it's kind of hard to prevent a back injury. But with hand injuries, they're the number one preventable accident. We firmly believe that with the right administration controls the right hazard assessment, the right PPE, the right training, all hand injuries can be preventable. So that's the good news. And yeah, third of all, hand injuries involve cuts or lacerations and nicks. And and that's no surprise. I mean, when you think about the average or the most common industrial setting, we use our hands in everything we do, whether it's material handling, handling tools and equipment, clean up, site maintenance, handling scrap. So we really use our hands in everything that we do. And the reality is, is that bad things happen to good hands. So we definitely want to protect those. And and so again, that that really starts with a good safety program, understanding the risks that's done through hazard assessment and then really assigning the correct PPE and the right administration controls to that environment. And so really just want to quickly go over the standard. And I think most folks on the call are probably familiar that most manufacturers in the PPE industry assign performance ratings to the PPE, and these performance ratings really help safety managers and employees understand what type of protection that piece of PPE is offering. So it really doesn't matter head to toe if you're wearing a hard hat, safety glasses, protective footwear, you're going to see those anti ratings for impact. If we're looking at hearing protection, you're going to see noise reduction ratings. And so it's no different with hand protection. We have these performance ratings that really we assign to the PPE, letting the user know, letting the safety managers know what type of performance that's offering. And so today we're going to focus in on cut resistance. But that standard, those ANSI standards do apply to cut resistance impact. So forceful smacks to the back of the hand maybe from rolling pipe or maybe you slip a crescent wrench and you get a bit of a bump on the knuckles, whether that's heat, whether that's puncture. So it's stabbing motion. So we use these anti performance markings to really assign to the PPE, letting you know what type of performance you can expect. And it's really about finding that sweet spot for your application. And it's generally a graduating scale. So it's numeric. So typically the higher the number, the more performance you could expect from that. And so today we're going to go over the nine levels of resistance under the ANSI standard. And we're sort of just going to break that down for you and sort of graduate up. And as again, you graduate up, the higher the number, the more the performance that PPE is offering. So that really helps as well from a hazard assessment perspective. And we'll touch on that here in a moment. And so just to touch on some of the materials, because there's so many different materials on the market, there's many manufacturers using different materials. We're always innovating. There's new technologies and new yarns and textiles being introduced to the market. So. But some common materials here. PPE, So a high performance polyethylene versus apparent aramid both going to be good yarns for cut resistance. And really when we're looking at any type of material, there's usually benefits and then there's usually maybe some drawbacks. So there's usually a trade off one versus the other. So for example, HP yarn cut resistant liners or yarns a little more comfortable can offer a little higher cut resistance, but a pair of aramid or a Kevlar, for example, has better heat properties. So there's that tradeoff. And that's why that hazard assessment is so important. Really trying to understand the application and some of the attributes that you might need for that, that work environment or for that specific task. So, you know, both offer cut resistance, but sometimes there's a tradeoff there, whether that's better heat resistance, maybe more comfort, chainmail gloves. So the one in the middle there, I think we're all we've seen this before, probably better known as a butcher's glove. So definitely use quite commonly in the meat processing industry or food processing. So again, a butcher's glove and it's just tiny chain links together, but it's a steel mesh glove. So yeah, that's going to offer high cut resistance. But of course it's very specific to task. Obviously you wouldn't see somebody using that for general purpose or working in a warehouse or something like that. So it's very specific application. You're not going to have that dexterity, you're not going to have that supreme comfort.So it's really specific to that application. And then really nowadays where and especially where where a lot of our innovation comes with is that engineered yarn. And so when I talked about how gloves are getting thinner and lighter and more breathable, but the performance levels are going up, that's really how we're achieving that through that, that new innovation, that technology, the engineered yarn, so many times there's a lot of individual yarns going into the core yarn and then we use that core yarn to sew the glove. And so there's a lot happening inside a glove that makes it what it is, whether that's cut resistance or puncture. And I will say that a lot of times if you have a high cut resistant rating, you're going to see some sort of puncture resistance as well. They sort of go hand in hand or not by all means a direct match. But if you do have a cut resistant glove, it is going to offer some form of puncture protection, whether that's screws or nails or high wire or splinters from wood perhaps. So there's going to be more attributes. But yeah, there's multiple ways to achieve cut resistance, really just depending on the scenario. And again, that's done through hazard assessment. So one thing that I'm going to do here, I'm just going to get the juices flowing. I'm just going to start a quick poll. So I'm going to start a poll here. You'll see that pop up on your screen and I'll just give you folks a few seconds to answer that. So there are many different types of cut proof gloves available on the market so that poll should be up there for you. We just give a few seconds there. Okay, Well, 100% so far. So let's just give another few seconds for those who might still be considering the answer. So leaning to the to the true more towards true. All right. Just a couple more seconds there. Just a couple more responses coming in here. All right. So, well, we'll go with true on this one. And I'm just going to close that poll and the answer is actually false. And the key word there was proof. So we do get that a lot. Cut proof. And you really sort of want to look at that more cut resistant. Really nothing is proof. If if you had something sharp enough with enough weight coming down on that glove, you could cut through that glove. And so we want to sort of use the terminology cut resistant, respecting the fact and understanding the fact that in certain situations that glove could still cut. And I think that's also a good opportunity to mention, because we hear this all the time, I visit all kinds of companies, and I've been on hundreds, if not thousands of shop floors. And anytime we introduce a cut resistant glove to an employee or the workers, there's there's generally not one employee who will pull a utility knife out of their pocket and they'll take the glove and they'll lean into it and they'll and they'll try to cut it and they'll say, well, no, I was able to cut through this glove. So, you know, you think of somebody standing over a glove like that, putting their weight fully into that glove. That's not really practical and that's not how the tests are performing. In the real environment, the hazards are usually coming from running our hand over an edge and having a first stick out and cut up or maybe handling sheet metal or maybe slipping with our utility knife and getting a laceration. So they absolutely will prevent those cut hazards. But to say something is cut proof or puncture proof or impact proof, we just want to use the terminology resistant understanding, the fact that given enough intensity that that glove could could break down and fail. So I just wanted to clarify that for the for the group today. And so just a couple of common misconceptions. And so that first one there, we just touched on it. So cut resistant gloves are cut proof. So cut resistant but not cut proof. Leather is cut resistant. So leather in itself without any PPE line or any sort of para-aramid or Kevlar liner trade name leather in itself is not cut resistant. In fact, it's actually one of the lowest materials for resistance. And you think about that, whether that's cowhide or goat skin or some other animal hide, it's no different than our skin. You know how easy we can cut our skin. It's no different than an animal hide or a cowhide. It has very low cut resistance and tensile strength or cut resistance. So with leather gloves, we have a full offering of cut resistant gloves. Yes, but you do have to put a cut resistant liner in that glove to achieve. And we have multiple from the whole scale 1 to 9. But again, it's it's the engineering. It's the it's the it's the liners that go into that leather. So leather on its own is not cut resistance. And that is a big misconception. A lot of people just feel safe in a leather glove. They feel it's more rugged. They feel it's going to perform better. And often they'll they'll make that assumption over the knitted gloves or the palm coated gloves, if you will. But those engineered yarns and those palm coated gloves offer up much, much higher performance level when it comes to resistance. And of course, again, the breathability, the dexterity. So we have sort of seen a shift in towards palm coated gloves. But again, there's that misnomer, that leather is superior when it comes to performance and cut resistance. And then 360 cut protection is the testing standard. It's not so 360 cut protection is not part of the ANSI standard. We're going to touch on that and I'll just articulate that a little bit better for you on this next slide. So as I mentioned in the beginning, it's very common for manufacturers of PPE to assign performance levels to our safety gloves and sleeves. So again, it's a scale 1 to 9. And really that test test the glove across the palm only. So to refer back to that last misconception, manufacturers are not required to test the gloves. 360 The test is done across the palm. It's a weighted blade. So when we look at it's a weighted blade. So it looks exactly like like a razor blade. And so similar to how manufacturers of safety glasses will shoot pellets at their safety glasses to test for impact, We're dragging very sharp razor blades over the palm of the glove to confirm the performance of that glove. So we want it to be as realistic as possible, but it's only across the palm. And so when we look at the graduating scale, so a one, a four all the way up to a nine, it's grams of cut force. So it's a weighted blade. So if you look at a one very nuisance level, 200 to 500 grams of cut force all the way up graduating to the A nine at the top level. So between 4000 to 6000 plus grams of cut force. And just to put that in perspective, that 6000 grams of cut force would be like about £13 of weight on that razor blade running across the palm of the glove. And we do multiple tests and we also change the razor blade out just to keep the integrity of the test. So you're not dulling the blade and getting getting a less aggressive cut. So we change that blade out. So but the reality is and in the industry is you could get cuts anywhere on your hand and people do it. And so although the standard only calls for testing across the Palm as a manufacturer, most of our cut resistant gloves are going to be 360 cuts. So by that I mean the entirety of the glove is offering that same cut resistant performance. And then when you add the palm coating, whether that's a polyurethane or a nitrile, you're increasing that cut resistant performance because you've got more material there. But the yarn itself is inherently cut resistant. And so the glove is 360. So within our offering, definitely look for that 360 icon. That's a good indication that, yes, that glove is going to protect you. 360 front and back. But that's not the case with all manufacturers and all gloves. So you just really want to make sure that when you're looking at a cut resistant glove, you just know where that resistance is being offered. And sometimes it's just across the palm. And in many cases with our offering, it's full 360. So just to clarify that for you and just a couple of things to clarify here as well. So you. The nuisance level. So nuisance level is something that may be more of a barrier. You may want to protect your hands from from certain debris or certain materials, but not necessarily posing a high level of cut risk, graduating to low, medium, high and extreme. And why I wanted to just touch on that quickly is this is a good way to do a hazard assessment when you're reviewing your application. So if we can sort of get our head around that that scale a one to a nine, we can sort of use that When we're looking at our hazard assessments, we're walking through our environment, our work sites and saying, okay, we're looking at that application. Yeah, that's nuisance level. There's no real risk there. Yeah, that's got some risk of cut hazard present or no, that's extreme. We're handling panes of glass or we're handling sheet metal or we're doing a stamping application, or maybe it's a drilling or oil and gas application. And so we can kind of sort of use these grouping levels and then tie it back into our hazard assessment to say, okay, where do we fit within this spectrum? And the other thing I'll say within this, a one to a nine scale is many, many different options. So whether that's leather, whether that's a knitted product, whether that's a chemical product, whether that's a chemical product with impact, there's multiple options of different types of products within each of these grouping levels. So when you start to think about it that way, it's no surprise that we have 400 gloves to offer because there's multiple different types of gloves and then there's multiple different types of gloves within each of these grouping levels. So nowadays you really can find that sweet spot and you really can choose the right level. And as I said before, you don't necessarily just want to say, well, we can just graduate up to the A nine and then we're covered across the board. Some companies do that for sure, and it may be applicable in some environments, but there's usually a trade off there when you go to the highest protection and cost needs to be considered performance dexterity, breathability, comfort the heat or the breathability side of things. So just wanted to reiterate that the last thing I'll say about Resistance North American Standard is under the ANC, some products that you see on the market may come in with a CE marking. Some manufacturers may import those gloves from the European market. So you'll actually see the CE stamp. And why that's important is it's quite common, but it's not a direct correlation to the anti standard. They're different levels. They're not the same grams, the cut we're going to focus in on the anti scoring today, but I just wanted you to be aware that you may not always see the ANSI standards. Sometimes you'll see both the anti standard and the CE. So you really just got to kind of understand what minimum level standards are in your applications and what testing standard you're adhering to. And in North America, mostly it's the anti standard and most of our gloves are manufactured under the ANSI standard. And so most companies that have a hand safety program, which we always recommend having some form of a hand safety program, those companies will usually assign a minimum performance level within their resistance. So our standards are minimum level a four or maybe it's a five. And so they've done their assessments, they've reviewed their workstations and their tasks, and they've assigned a minimum level of protection. And then maybe it goes up from there. And then the best companies that we see will assign top level performance by individual tasks. Sometimes they'll go further and have a have a selection guide that shows for this task. This is the performance level that should be used. So companies do this in different ways, but we find that the best companies that are most effective hand safety programs will specifically define what level of performance is appropriate for that task. So it's the perfect glove for that task. It's not too light, it's not underperforming, and it's not overkill, for example. So we're just going to break down these these individual ratings and just give you some suggested applications just to kind of get our head around some of these different buckets from nuisance level to medium to extreme or low, medium, high risk. And just one last point or side note, as a manufacturer, we have an extensive R&D and in-house lab. We do the ANSI testing in-house. So when we're innovating in manufacturing gloves, we will test those gloves. But as manufacturers, we have to send that product up for third party testing if we want to get these markings. So to publish these markings on the gloves, we have to send it out for third party. We have to validate that through the test report and then we can put these labels on the glove. So if you're looking at a cut resistant glove, it should if it's tested in third party testing, it should absolutely have these markings clearly marked on the glove. And we put it in two places. So we have it on the order of the glove. So you can clearly see the performance attributes. And then we have it on an affixed label on the inside of the glove. So, for example, if the odor material is to flake off or peel off or what have you just due to wear, you would still have that secondary label inside. So as you're going back to your worksites, maybe perhaps after this session and you're looking at some of your gloves, you have a look. Those markings should be there. And that's consistent across all of the performance levels. Whether that's impact or puncture abrasion, you will generally see those performance levels published and advertise, letting you know, okay, what can I expect from this specific glove? So that can be very helpful when you're when you're looking at your applications versus what you might be using today. Are we under protecting or are we over protecting or are we right in that that practical sweet spot? And so when we look at cut level one gloves, as I mentioned, it's the lowest cut level and offers very minor cut protection. And these are really designed to protect only against the lightest cut hazards and really more so a barrier, as I said before. So just a note, a side note there as well. We don't actually publish a one glove, so pretty much any material that we would make. So whether we're developing a glove, generally, it's going to at least meet a level, A1 mean, a thick enough piece of paper towel would probably need a level one. So we don't we don't really bother to publish an A1 on the glove because we don't want to give that false sense of security. But if you were to test it in the lab or have it sent out for testing, you'd probably achieve a level one. But I wouldn't necessarily look at that as offering any real cut performance. Warehousing is a big one, so where you just need to have that that protection maybe from dust or other debris you might want grip. So if you're grabbing boxes off of a conveyor belt and you want to have that grip, maybe it's a knitted glove with the dotted palm, that sort of thing. Shipping, receiving light maintenance somewhere, some environments where there's no risk of cut hazards or hazards are very low or not present at all. So assembly areas, again, very light duty, that's probably the way I would sum that up, is very light duty applications where there's no real risk of cut and dexterity is really more of the concern. They want to have grip, they want to have dexterity, they want to have precision. They're not worried about cut resistance. Or cut hazards. So if we jump over to a two and a three and again, if we're looking at the answer, you're always going to have that A in front of the marking. So if someone says, I need a level three cut resistant glove, we just want to confirm a two at it's under the anti standard, so A2 and A3 we sort of group together and cut level two and three group these together because they're kind of suited towards similar applications and hazard levels. But much like level one, they're not going to offer an extreme level of resistance. It's that low cut some construction applications. So traditionally in construction, we've seen that E two that E three just general purpose, general labor, labor, maybe throwing some lumber around or moving some other materials, some assembly, working with small hand tools that that sort of thing, maybe some small bursts from some finishing applications. 

Shane: [00:27:40] But really it's that low cut. And again, just reiterate that grams of cut force there across that palm. And so a lot of construction companies now have graduated up into a four, a five. But again, we don't want to we don't want to graduate up to high. We want to use the gloves that are appropriate to the task. So E two and a three, we sort of group together. And again, no shortage of options with a two, a three, whether that's going to be different materials, whether that's going to be a chemical resistant glove, whether that's going to be a knitted glove, perhaps a welding glove. So within each of these categories, there's multiple different types of materials that we use for different applications, whether it's a chemical or welding and fab application. So those are grouped together. If we jump over to a four, that's really the sweet spot, I would say, in the industry right now, it's kind of middle of the road. It was considered sort of a standard in the oil and gas industry, but that's kind of changed. They've sort of migrated to a slightly higher resistance. So level four, I would say, is the sweet spot in construction, but just giving you some general applications, nothing is going to supersede doing a proper hazard assessment. Every work environment is different. Lots of variables going on there, different dynamics. So we definitely want to we can use these as guidelines and these are suggested applications. But again, I just want to reiterate that nothing is going to supersede a proper hazard assessment, and that's what we would always recommend. So when we look at cut level for gloves is usually really good flexibility, great dexterity, It's going to give you good for multiple tasks, whether that's like metal stamping. When we say light just mean like smaller parts, like metal stamping, some framing bottling operations. Again, construction, whether it's maintenance and site cleanup and handling lumber, that general purpose, you know, some screws in the wood you might catch an edge, that sort of thing. So we do often see a lot of the box cutters with the retractable blade, a four or maybe a five. But yeah, we do see box cutters for opening packaging used in that in that a four level. So each stack being another one. So again just some suggested applications there for you. And so, again, grouping the level five and six gloves together, considered to be the high end. So that's actually where you're graduating from, from low to moderate or mid level cut into that high and you can see the grams of cut force get quite, quite up there. So yeah, I would say 85 and 86 is pretty much the the sweet spot in oil and gas. They've recently become sort of that industry standard and drilling refinery settings. Workers are frequently in close proximity to a number of hazards, whether it's pipes and tongs and other equipment on rigs and sharp edges. So, you know, you definitely need to start getting into that high cut. And a lot of this a lot of this industry research is been done based on experience. So certain incidents of happen and we've recognized you need to start graduating out for specific applications. And so that's how a lot of these levels have been assigned to specific tasks just literally by trial and error, as sad as that sounds, because obviously an incident probably took place, but it's that trial and error and trying to find what is the appropriate level of performance level for that particular application. And so we do see a lot of companies trying to just have one cut level for all applications, and that's really hard to do. It's sort of like using one tool for all jobs that's almost impossible. And we kind of say the same thing with gloves. If you have a very dynamic environment, you've got a lot of different applications from low, moderate to high risk. It might be possible that you might need two or three different options. You may need to change out those gloves based on that application. And so we want to make sure that the gloves are readily available. It's convenient to get those gloves and otherwise the worker may go without and they may be compromise with a lower level of protection that they might otherwise not have to use. So so that's just some suggested applications. They are used in heavier stamping applications. Some of the higher cut resistant gloves can have a thicker gauge. So different levels of thickness as well as you start to graduate. And then really that top level of the spectrum is 7 to 8 nine. So that's going to be like you're right at the high risk, the highest extreme that you can see. So definitely meat processing, so food processing where we're using sharp, razor sharp cutting tools and knives and boning and that sort of thing. Absolutely. And sort of that drilling application, you know, even glazing, if you're handling sharp edges of glass HVAC applications where you might be handling duct doing duct work or handling sheet metal, even sometimes utility knives, if they have that that black blade, it's extremely sharp. And if you get that thing coming at you with enough force, yeah, that could pose a serious cut risk. So again, just trying to understand your environment, what type of spectrum you fit in on the cut 1 to 9 and just trying to find that, that sweet spot. And again, there's no shortage of options. So whether that's, you know, chemical or whatever. So there really shouldn't be a need to compromise and say, well, this is a specific application. We can't find the appropriate type of glove for this. You there's multiple options within each bucket. And so really and that's a big thing we do as a manufacturer is we work with our partners to look at their applications. We make recommendations. We let the employees try the glove through, wear trial, provide the feedback, because we want to make sure, as I said in the beginning, what is the right glove? It's the glove that the employees will actually wear, because if it's if it's not appropriate, if it's not offering that level of dexterity, the first thing that worker's going to do when no one's looking is most likely take that glove off, because if they're not able to do their work in a unimpeded manner and so they're compromised. And that's where we usually see hand injuries take place. Now, a common complaint with a 6789 gloves is traditionally they were big and bulky because the thicker the material, the better performance rating you're going to get. But as I said, lots of progress has been made over the last few years. The engineering that goes into the yard and the glove is so innovative and now you can get extremely thin gloves. So, for example, I'll just quickly go over the gauges of glove. So gloves and especially the palm coated gloves are broken down by gauge. So 21, 18, 15, 13, 10, 7. So the higher the number, the thinner the glove. So the higher the gauge 21, the thinner the glove. And then it gets thicker as you go down. And my point here is that we have a 9, 21 gauge glove. So we have the thinnest gauge you can achieve with a knitted glove and the highest performance you can achieve under the current anti resistance performance standard. So again, the days of big bulky gloves being needed for high risk or extreme scenarios, those days are gone. So just just know that if you if you if you are in that situation as a manufacturer, we would love to again, show you some of those options if that's if that's something that you're faced with. So, yeah, the technology is getting better and and now the workers don't have to take off the gloves. And there's other things that need to be considered there too. Is there a need for touch screen? Do they need to be able to look at drawings on their phone, anything that's going to prevent them from taking that glove off? So, yeah, lots lots of good options on the market today. So just just know sort of what's available and and align that with your specific applications. So just just as part of the next steps from today's information session, you'll receive an email and it's going to be access to some free resources. And as I welcome you to do in the beginning of the session here today, you can always email me [email protected]. I welcome your emails and your questions and your inquiries, so don't be shy. Happy to help. That's what we do as the manufacturer. And one resource we're going to share with you is a recently published book by our Vice President, Joe Jang, entitled Rethinking and Safety. And that is such a great resource for anybody who's looking to develop a safety program or perhaps refine an existing safety program. So this book really isn't about PPE. It's about practical ways that real safety managers have been able to reduce hand injuries on their worksites by 50%, even as high as 90%, and in some small cases, reducing their injuries altogether or eliminating their injuries altogether. And that's really the goal is zero injuries. And we do believe that can be achieved. So that's a great resource. It's an easy read. Again, it can be sort of a playbook if you're looking to develop or improve upon an existing safety program. So we'll share that resource there with you. You have the cut resistant guide. So again, it'll have some of our options that we covered today. You'll actually see the product breakdown. As I mentioned, there's different cut levels for different applications, whether it's chemical, whether it's welding, whether it's palm knitted leather. So no shortage of options there and some suggested applications. But again, I just want to reiterate, it's always best to do a hazard assessment. And as a manufacturer, that's the big part of what we do is we help our customers with that process and sort of navigate through that journey. If they if they've never done that or maybe they don't have the resources to do that, we can do some of the heavy lifting for you and then free one on one hand, one on one with a hand safety specialist. So that can be in person, that can be virtual, but that's someone like me. We have had safety specialists across the globe, really, and we just love to work with our end user customers and our distribution partners to really help them with their safety initiatives. So if that's you, you've got hand safety challenges, you're struggling with things you're looking in to really solve some problems and some challenges. You want to develop a safety program. We can help you with that journey. Some of our district distribution partners or your distribution partners operate at that. And so it's free. So it's really worth the conversation. And so, yeah, if that's you, if you're looking for that consultation, reach out to us. We'd be happy to have that discovery meeting and start to understand what some of your pain points are and help you sort of start to address those. So with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Fred and we're going to open it up to Q&A.

Fred: [00:39:11] That's awesome. Thanks so much, Shane, and thanks to everybody for your questions and for your participation. We've got a lot of questions here, so I'm just going to dive right into them. Shane How did the ANSI standards relate to the CSA standards? 

Shane: [00:39:27] So that's a good question and the ANSI standard. And so for a lot of products on the market for PPE head to toe, they will offer a CSA standard as well as a standard. So you think about fall protection, for example, you're going to see ANSI and CSA. That is the exception with gloves. You're not going to see CSA standards for gloves. So you can pretty much cross that right off the list. It's going to be ANSI and ASTM standards. If you reach out to me, one thing I can do is I can send you the performance guide. So it's basically a poster and it breaks down, cut abrasion, puncture, heat and impact and it shows you that graduating scale. So that's a great resource to just kind of see where you might fit in. But yeah, that would be the exception. Again, I recognize that with hard hats there's ANSI and CSA type 1 type 2, and with gloves. No. And even under impact, the CSA is usually for impact. Even our impact rated gloves are not under CSA, they're under the ISCA 138 standard. And we have documents we could share about that standard. But you can pretty much cross CSA off the list when it comes to hand protection.

Fred: [00:40:38] Thanks for that. And just to follow up on that one, does OSHA incorporate the ANSI standard in OSHA regulations?

Shane: [00:40:45] They do make recommendations. It's not too specific. They don't really get to it's more general in generic, I would say. But they what they typically do is we will refer back to the manufacturer. So you'll see that a lot on the spec sheet too. When you're looking at a safety data sheet and you go to section eight under protective equipment, you'll usually see hand protection and it can be quite general. It'll say use chemical resistant gloves, but it doesn't really go more than that. In terms of the neoprene, is it a butyl glove? Is it a neutral, is it a PVC? So that's really where we can help as a manufacturer. But yeah, I totally I totally know that I know where they're coming from there. A lot of times in the fall protection, they'll actually reference the specific standards. You don't see that for protection as much. It's not as common. And I think that's also one of the reasons why hand injuries are so common, is because there's that complacency and the PPE hand protection isn't as high in the PPE hierarchy as, say, fall protection or respiratory or confined space because those can be fatal. You probably won't have a fatality from a hand injury. So maybe it's not as high up on the hierarchy of PPE. So I think that might be the reason why it doesn't get too much into the needs, into the standards. But whether it's OHS or OSHA, yeah, they don't they don't define the standards in too much detail.

Fred: [00:42:13] Thanks for that. Is gripping specification addressed in the ANSI standard gripping specification?

Shane: [00:42:21] No, but we do cover palm coding so it's not in the ANSI standard but when it comes to grip and I think that's the question is from grip because that is a good question. We use multiple different types of palm coatings, whether it's a polyurethane, whether it's a nitro, whether it's a micro or nitrile foam, nitrile PVC and all of those different coatings have different attributes for different applications. So PVC is really great for working with glues, the glues and those if systems don't stick to the to the product or the gloves as well. If you're working with oily, greasy, grimy equipment, a foam nitrile or a nitrile would be better than, say, a PU. If you're looking for that tactile dry grip, PU is great for that. So we do have a chart that breaks down what palm coatings are good for what application specifically? I'd be happy to share that resource as well, but it's not covered in the ANSI standard. And I'll just touch one more on that to clarify, when we have a 360 knitted cut resistant glove and we palm code it, that does add a little bit more cut resistance. And again, we're cutting across the pump. So that's how you can often achieve a high level of resistance. You just make the palm thicker, but that's not really practical. So what we do is we engineer our glove. The yarn itself is inherently cut resistant and we go with that value so that we go with the sort of the lowest value so that we don't have as a gap or a gray area there. So I hope I hope that answered that question. And if not, feel free to send me an email and I can go a little bit deeper. But grip is not covered in the ANSI standard chain. 

Fred: [00:43:59] Do you offer sizes and fit specifically for women?

Shane: [00:44:03] Yes, we don't market specifically towards ladies PPE. However, that is one differentiator with superior glove that people appreciate is we go in most cases, especially on the palm coated glove, but even on the leather. So on the knitted palm coated gloves, traditionally all the way down to the size five, which is like a double extra small. And then on the other end of the spectrum, three extra large. So for ladies, we often say size five, a size six is where we usually would get the sample requests in the wear trials. But it's not specifically gender specific, it's universal. But recognizing that, yeah, not only ladies but some workers, different cultures and ethnicities have different shapes and sizes and types. And so yeah, we go all the way down to a double extra small in most cases and in many cases and all the way up to three extra large. So we're pretty confident we can, we can accommodate most people. And the other thing I'll say is we use true hand technology. So some gloves you might have you look at the pinky, so all the all the fingers fit great. And there's a lot of extra generous material in the pinky. And that's just the way the glove is being cut and sewn. We use it. So we actually have the exact shape of our hand and you can see how much our pinky drops down. So you need to compensate for that. We need to we need to design the gloves that way because you don't want to have anything too sloppy there that's going to get caught in the machine and pull your hand in. So yeah, but yeah, we definitely I would say if you're looking to outfit women with PPE, it would be look at some of those smaller sizes.

Fred: [00:45:46] In your opinion, is it possible to measure cut risk at work to define the correct cut level gloves? 

Shane: [00:45:55] I mean, yeah, I mean, through hazard assessment, you can you can get a good gauge. I know it sounds reactive versus proactive, but a lot of times it is sort of trial. You've got to sort of try the gloves for that application. So we want to get it close. Another thing that we really recommend is keeping really good statistics. Really good. So if you have incidents, if you have hand injuries, you have cuts. Having that really good statistical data that you can refer back to to see, hey, we are using we set a standard of minimum, a five. We've had a number of cut injuries still this year. We want to get those injuries down. It's possible that we are using we're using a glove that's not adequate cut level. So you might want to graduate up. And on the other side of that is if you haven't had any hand injuries but you're using an A9, you  may look at maybe going to something a little less. But yeah, so that's one way we'd recommend just keeping that statistical data and really looking at where your cut injuries or incidents are stemming from. And that's really the best way to do that. And then I would heavily rely on your distribution partners and your manufacturer partners like Superior Glove. We have a lot of experience. We can come in, we can help you with your hazard assessment, we can make the recommendations. And it's very rare that we recommend the highest performing PPE. We recommend the glove that's appropriate for the task. And sometimes that's an E2  and sometimes that's an A9. So. Depending on the scenario.

Fred: [00:47:26] Do you have any injury statistics relating to hand injuries due to improper fitting gloves and don't necessarily have to put you on the spot here now, but do you have any statistics that maybe we can share with our our readers and our audience after the fact?

Shane: [00:47:42] Yeah, I'd have to check in on that to see what type of statistical data that we may we may have on that. But yeah, if we if we do, we absolutely be happy to share some of that. There's some good direction in the rethinking and safety book as well as some tips and tricks that you might look at implementing if you're trying to reduce those cuts and hand injuries. And you know, there's the common culprit, we could say that these do lead to lacerations and cut. Obviously, utility knives are a big one. Handling sheet metal machining scene, see the shears, the shavings and the burning process. So, yeah, we have a good indication. But let me double check on the statistics side of things. And we do have our partners that have statistics. Just whether or not we're able to share those or not would be the question here. 

Fred: [00:48:31] A bit of a tangent here, but do you have any information regarding gloves and working on electric vehicles?

Shane: [00:48:38] Yeah, we do. I wouldn't say specifically electric vehicles. That's an interesting concept. And we might I would have to check on that because that is how we do go to market. So if you go on to our website, you'll see under products there'll be a dropdown superior glove dot com, click on catalogs and within that catalog section you'll actually see industry specific gloves. So you'll see automotive, you'll see an automotive catalog, they'll show you the gloves that are appropriate for the automotive companies we deal with. And that's where that information has come from. We have an outback guide, we have a construction guide, we have mining, so we have utility. So flash rated gloves, for example. So yeah, just really depending on the scope of the electric vehicle manufacturing and what that might entail, whether they need an anti-static or maybe non marring gloves or things of that nature. So it's actually an interesting question because obviously that's going to become more prominent over the next few years. So yeah, that's interesting. I'm going to look into that and if you want to send me an email with that, I'll get back to you directly. I'll connect with some of our automotive experts that we have in Superior and see if they've had that question and what they might be recommending. Great question.

Fred: [00:49:53] So there's a big difference, obviously, between handling sharp material and being exposed to a sharp edge or end. How do you consider that difference when performing the hazard assessment and deciding on the appropriate glove resistance?

Shane: [00:50:09] Yeah, I think it's that's a good question. I mean, there's obviously a lot of different scenarios whether you're handling something sharp that could potentially slip out of your hands and that's where the incident could occur. So it's more of an inadvertent accident or incident or you're actually dealing with something where, you know, you're in contact with something sharp. That's just the nature. So you're handling sheet metal or you're doing duct work or something like that. So really, I would say you just want to look at the risk and say if there is a risk, even if it's incidental or an accident, if there is a high risk or a moderate risk, you would just sort of want to align with the ANSI performance standard. So that's why I said in the beginning, sort of look at that scale from 1 to 9 or a one to a nine and really try to understand are you in a low risk situation, even if it was an inadvertent or accidental situation or no, are you exposed to that hazard on the regular? It's a high risk, high probability that there's going to be a laceration across the palm or something like that. So, yeah, it's a tough question just because, you know, that's why we like to get into when we work with our end users, we like to get in and see the applications firsthand, that fresh eyes approach. And sometimes we can see certain things that might have been overlooked or some administration controls that we can put into place, because again, we still want to follow that hierarchy of of controls. We don't want to just go straight to PPE. We want to look at the can we can we eliminate the risk altogether? Can we put some administration controls in instead of carrying that really sharp material or that scrap that we just cut with with a hand torch? Is there a material handling part? We might be able to use that so we don't have to handle that material. So having the manufacturer or the expertise have come in and just look at those applications firsthand, unintended is always good to help. I hope I answered that. I know it's kind of it's not cut and dry when it comes to hazard assessment because there's a lot of variables. So to really get in and see that in real time is always best. And then we make the recommendations and then we send the gloves out for trial, and then we work with the employees and the safety managers and the companies to say, okay, is this appropriate? Is this. Appropriate solution.

Fred: [00:52:28] That's great. Thanks, Shane. Are there any cut resistant gloves that are waterproof and follow up to that? Are there any waterproof, cut resistant gloves that are easily cleaned can be easily cleaned? 

Shane: [00:52:40] Yeah. Good question. And so that's the one exception where I'll accept the proof word because we talked about not being proof or puncture proof, but we do have waterproof gloves. So I will say that. And so we do have a new new waterproof glove specifically. So it's not a coated glove on the outside. Traditionally we have a new knitted liner, so the yarn itself, that bladder, that knitted bladder inside is waterproof. So you can do a full submerge inside water or in a bucket of water, for example, your hand will stay completely dry. That comes in an A4 So we're not middle of the road and we have winter and summer. So the winter version has a fleece lining to form coated style glove with a nitrile coating. And what was the second part of that question? My apologies. What was that second part of that there?

Fred: [00:53:28] Are there any water resistant cut resistant club gloves that are easily clean?

Shane: [00:53:34] Yeah. So the laundering side. Yeah. So most knitted gloves are laundry, but we do have a laundering guide. And so, yeah, I would say that for sure that glove would be launderable. And yeah, our gloves and gloves in general, especially on the knitted side, can be laundered and even leather gloves now can be laundered. Yeah.

Fred: [00:53:55] Do you have any suggestions for how employers can encourage workers to actually wear their gloves?

Shane: [00:54:03] Yeah, I would say a couple of suggestions. There would be to start small. If you're if you're looking at improving hand safety, we want to start small. We don't want to boil the ocean. We want to start to work with those employees. We want to engage them. You know, we sort of if you're looking at building a hand safety program, one of the biggest things we always recommend is you've got to engage the employees. You've got to have them as part of the process. You've got to get there by. And so if you're thinking of rolling out a safety program and you kind of have the experience and the knowledge and you develop this this nice program and maybe it's the best program ever, but you sort of enforce it on the workers and they weren't considered just that alone. You might get push back. So one of the biggest things when it comes to buy in with employees is their consideration. They're the ones doing the tasks day in and day out. They're the ones that are the experts in their craft or their trade. And so really having their consultation, making them part of the process, we call it the IKEA effect. When somebody is part of building something, they have a sense of pride, a sense of ownership, and you can kind of bring them on for the journey. So and when I said start small, hey, you know, we're thinking of introducing these new gloves. We've had some hand injuries, we've had some cut injuries, and we're going to introduce some cut resistant gloves. You mind being part of that trial? We're going to get the manufacturer to come in, so start small and then sort of graduate up and try not to, like I said, boil the ocean in one in one approach. And it's so important to have the employees try those gloves against their applications. Most employees can tell you within an hour if that glove is going to work for their applications. But you've got to involve them in the process. If they're not involved in the process, the chances of buying are going to be quite low.

Fred: [00:55:52] What work activity is best performed without gloves.

Shane: [00:55:56] I would say one area where we do recommend no gloves is usually if you're working on specific tools like a pipe threading machine. So if you look at a pipe shredder, it'll clearly say right on there from the manufacturer, let's say it's rigid. It has a circle with a line through the glove, no gloves. And that's what that's because, again, if you're working with that equipment, your hand could be pulled into that drill or that tool. So that would be one area we recommend not wearing gloves. However, if you do absolutely need a glove for that application because you're using cutting fluid or some other type of material, we do have pair gloves. So if that glove was to get caught in that machine, it would pair away and not drag your hand into the machine. But the best solution for that is no gloves. And that's really one of the only applications, I would say, because again, we often find not wearing gloves is where we see the incidents. But you just got to make sure that if you're working around moving equipment and machinery, you've just got to adhere to the manufacturer's specifications.

Fred: [00:57:02] Thanks for that. And we're almost to the end of the questions here. Generally speaking, would leather be better than rubber gloves?

Shane: [00:57:12] Yes and no. I guess it depends on the application. Leather is really slippery, so when leather gets wet, it's very slippery. And so if you're working in an environment where you need good grip, I would recommend a rubber glove or a nitro palm coated PVC. I mean, there's multiple compounds depending on the application, but I wouldn't say one is better than the other. It's really just from an application. And hey, we've got rubber gloves that are 85, we've got leather gloves that are 85, we've got impact gloves that are rubber, we've got impact leather that are leather. So it really just depends on what attributes are important to you for that application. I wouldn't say one is better than the other, but one thing I'll say is, yeah, rubber is going to give you better grip when wet leather can be a bit slippery. Rubber is going to also be more of a true fit. Leather can be. You're going to have more movement in that glove. It's not going to be as dexterous as some of the palm coated gloves. 

Fred: [00:58:05] And this question was answered by one of our audience members. But I'd be curious to get your take on it, too. With the higher level of cut resistance, is there less dexterity? 

Shane: [00:58:16] Traditionally, yes, because the way to get a higher cut resistance in the past was to make the gloves thicker. So as you bulk up again that cut across the palm, you've got more material, harder for that blade to get through. You're going to achieve a higher cut gram score, however. The innovation is there now. So we just for example, I'll just advertise our new gloves here. We just launched the world's thinnest cut resistant glove at the highest performance level. So it's a 21 gauge and it's an A9. So the days of the high performance equaling, bulky, uncomfortable, hot, cumbersome, those are far and few between. Now we have multiple options in the 21 gauge and the 18 gauge that are that are super dextrous, super breathable laundrable touch screen compatible latex free. So yeah, I'm curious. Yeah. So that would be the answer is no you don't. You don't need to sacrifice performance and safety with comfort and dexterity. We have options at all levels now, so that's great.

Fred: [00:59:20] And thanks so much to all our audience members for their time and their attention. And there's questions. There's so many more we can't even have time to get to them. Shane So we'll be sure to send those over to you. And if you do have any additional questions, feel free to reach out to Shane directly. I just want to take this time to thank all our audience members for joining and participating today. You are the driving force behind safety in your organization and I hope that you can put some of the takeaways from today's presentation into action. A huge thank you to Shane and Superior Glove for hosting today's webinar. Very well done on behalf of Superior Glove and Canadian Occupational Safety. Thank you for your time and I hope to see you all again very soon. Have a great day.