At the 2022 ISEA Annual Meeting, Tom Votel, ISEA Chair and President & CEO of Ergodyne, said a tremendous amount of work is being done in the area of Standards across all product categories.
He thanked ISEA’s Diana Jones for leading the standards efforts, and for reconstituting the Standards governance, recently launching the enhanced Standards Planning & Development Committee, with the support from Committee leadership Joanne Klein of Kimberly Clark and McKenzie Peters with MSA.
Nate Kogler, ISEA Vice Chair and Vice President of Products & Engineering at Bradley Corp., reviewed the latest updates:
HAND PROTECTION
The Hand Protection group has revised ANSI/ISEA 105 and submitted to ANSI for approval. This 5th revision introduces several new concepts, including specific marking details to standardize the classes for cut, puncture, and abrasion resistance. The revision also includes language for conformity assessment, referencing the ANSI/ISEA 125 for Conformity Assessment of Safety and Personal Protective Equipment.
Kogler thanked members of that product group, led by Brian Singer at MCR Safety, for their efforts to push this forward. “We should see that released in early 2023,” he said. “ISEA is planning a full campaign to promote the standard and hand protection in general.”
HEAD PROTECTION
The Head Protection group is currently working to update ISEA’s most popular standard – the ANSI/ISEA Z89.1.
“Head protection is experiencing a revolution in technology,” said Kogler.
The head protection product group is working to ensure these new innovations in head protection as well as trends in global standards are addressed and incorporated into the next round of revisions.
Head Protection has also established a subgroup to research and draft the first US standard for bump caps – the Z100. This new standard will establish minimum design, performance, labeling and testing requirements for solutions that protect from worker-generated impact to the head.
Kogler thanked Ergodyne’s Greg Schrab for leading this group. “I understand the group has a strong outline and is making great progress in moving this forward,” he said.
RESPIRATORY PROTECTION
“The Respiratory Protection Group remains busy in a post-COVID world,” said Kogler. He said ISEA continues to work closely with NIOSH, presenting at their events, and attending meetings like the NIOSH all-manufacturers meeting in Pittsburgh in October.
“ISEA and its members have a wonderful relationship with the team at NIOSH,” he said. “They know they can come to us looking for expertise in respiratory protection.”
PRODUCT GROUP MEETINGS
Kogler said there is much work being done in all product areas, and that discussions in all meetings at the 2022 Annual Meeting were productive and continue to move that needle forward.
“Product Group meetings are where much of the real work and magic happens at ISEA,” he said. “New and veteran members alike learn from one another, broaden perspectives, gain consensus, contribute, and grow.”
