Stephan Marret, Technical Support Manager: "We conduct about 200 tests other than those mandated by the standard per year."


Stephan Marret, Technical Support Manager: "We conduct about 200 tests other than those mandated by the standard per year."

Can you introduce yourself and tell us what your job is?

Hello, my name is Stephan Marret, I am a Technical Support Manager. I've been working in the PPE industry for 20 years. As a technical expert, I have a mission to set up and develop performance tests.

Can you tell us more about the tests you conduct?

Today, the standard is made up of standardized tests that determine the conformity of PPE. However, these standards do not allow us to determine the real performance of these products.

If we take an example, we will have two products that obtain the same certification and in use we will realize that one of the two will perform much better than the other. For this reason, we decided to create our own protocol by re-evaluating these thresholds in order to allow the user to identify which products provide the best performance.

Can you give us an example of Coverguard testing?

For protective gloves, there is an abrasion resistance test that is also called the Martindale test. The maximum level for these gloves is the level 4, which corresponds to 8,000 cycles. We wanted to re-evaluate this performance by putting a cycle at 20,000 cycles, which allowed us to identify a selection of extremely resistant and extremely durable gloves among our products.

Are all the tests based on the European standard?

No, through the various exchanges we have had with users, we realize that the standard takes into account more the notions of risk and protection of the person and does not take into account the notions of comfort and use.

For example, a glove can be extremely resistant to abrasion, but on the other hand it will not be breathable at all, so we will set up a test that will allow us to combine both performance in durability and performance in comfort and therefore breathability.

Are the tests based on real work situations? 

We have set up a use test where people handle parts in an oily environment, an environment where the products are extremely slippery, and so we are going to carry out a grip test, and through this test we are going to enable the user to identify the gloves in our ranges that provide the best grip performance.

Who conducts these tests?

The thresholds are developed in-house and then we work in partnership with independent certified laboratories such as the CTC, IFTH or SATRA.

How many tests are performed per year?

We carry out abrasion, breathability and thermal insulation tests, as well as grip tests and heel transfer coefficient tests. All of these tests represent approximately 200 tests carried out in our partner laboratories.

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