Transcript

Al: Welcome everybody, to Radio Free Tenacity, the Voice of Worker Safety. Here today with International Safety Equipment Association Trustee and Ergodyne President, much easier to say, Greg Schrab. He's here to break down the latest head protection standard out there. Greg, thanks for joining us today.

Greg: Yeah, thanks Al. Good to be here.

Al: So what's up with this new standard, ANSI/ISEA 100? I thought we already had a head protection standard.

Greg: Well, it's new to you. It's not new to me. We've been working on it for, five years now. It's something that started back in 2019 as a discussion. And then 2020, the whole world shut down and we had to pick things back up. But it's really been moving rapidly the last couple of years.

Greg: And we couldn't be more excited to have a new standard out there to talk about. What's different about it? It's bump caps versus hard hats. And Z89, is the hardhat standard.

Al: Okay.

Greg: ISEA 100 is the bump cap standard.

Al: Okay. All right. So maybe it would make sense then for us to kind of take a second and linger then on the differences between a hard hat and a bump cap, just so people know.

Greg: Yeah, they're very different things. And a hard hat, Z89, is all about hard hats and hard hats are there to protect workers from object-generated impact. Things that fall on you. Right? Falling down onto you. A bump cap is for worker-generated impact. A worker bumping their head into something that's above them or aside them.

Al: Okay. It's like a stationary, like me bumping my head on this table.

Greg: Exactly.

Al: All right. Okay.

Greg: So that-that's the difference. There was a discussion once upon a time to actually just have bump caps be part of Z89 as a subsection. And we wanted to make it absolutely clear to everybody that they're two different things, for different hazards. So we didn't want the numbers to be confusing. So Z89, hard hats. ISEA 100, bump caps.

Al: Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. So then like you're saying this standard has been in the works for a while, and bump caps aren't exactly new. So then what were people using as a guideline prior to this standard?

Greg: Yeah. Great question. Best practice. Just, like a lot of things, they were using what worked. What worked for them. In a lot of cases it might have been a bump cap. But there was no standard around them. So bump caps have been around for a long, long time. The plastic, hard shell bump cap.

Greg: Those have been in food processing and manufacturing plants for decades.

Al: Okay.

Greg: The fabric insert based bump caps are a little bit newer. But people have been using them, right? We've been in the bump cap market since 2012 at Ergodyne. And we've had great success in many industries. Manufacturing, auto manufacturing, transportation. And we have had great success because they work.

Greg: What hasn't been there before is a standard for manufacturers to use to make them, label them all the same, test them all the same way. And that's what we did with ISEA 100.

Al: Okay. All right. And I know from talking to you and some folks on the product team that when it comes to, maybe a guideline testing standards, there is and was, an existing standard in Europe, is that right?

Greg: Yep, EN812.

Al: Okay. Right. So then is this new standard, pretty much a carbon copy, US version of that standard?

Greg: Short answer. No. EN812 has been around for quite a while. We have tested a lot of our bump caps and inserts in the past to that standard, because it's been the only standard that was known to us and available globally. Us and other manufacturers, we've used it. And as we looked at building, ISEA 100, it was definitely something that we wanted to reference.

Greg: So because there's a lot of good in it. And as you're looking at standards, you don't want to just create something different just to have another thing that's different. We want to make it easy on manufacturers and on end users to, if you if you were using an EN812 certified bump cap before, we don't want you to not use that in the future.

Greg: So ISEA 100 is certainly grounded in some of the same, testing principles and methods. But we've, I think we've improved it. ISEA 100 is improvement on EN812.

Al: Okay. Yeah. Are there some, maybe basic ways, that you could, you know, if somebody, you know, elevator speech, somebody asks you, "Okay, well, so what are the big differences?"

Greg: Yeah. And I'll maybe I'll start with what's the same. So the key impact test, the Force Transmission Test, the test that says  this is going to protect you when you bump your or bang your head into something, that's virtually the same. The penetration test, so there's a test to see what passes through any of the venting points to make sure that if you hit your head on something sharp, it doesn't pass through and impact you. That's virtually the same.

Greg: What's different with ISEA 100 than EN812, is it allows for more flexibility in design. EN812 is very prescriptive in how a bump cap is built. It has to be fabric based. So this would never pass EN812. It doesn't even have a spot for it.

Greg: The inserts are not allowed to be tested on their own in EN812. They have to be tested within, a fully formed, and fitted fabric cap. So that's different. So we've allowed for more design flexibility, which we think will benefit manufacturers and end users alike in the future because it just allows for more design creativity.

Al: That makes sense. And kind of to that point, and you see splayed out here on the table that these are all versions of bump caps, right. I'm wondering if you could, maybe just briefly go over the differences of what, people that are watching this episode, are seeing here.

Greg: Yep. So the oldest tried and true bump cap was known as, you know, a plastic hard shell bump cap. This is all plastic. It has a suspension system not dissimilar to a Z89 hard hat. It's not the same. It doesn't provide anywhere near the same level of protection, but it is designed with an insert, a suspension system rather.

Greg: And it also has an adjustable ratchet system for different head sizes. So these have been around forever. That's probably what most people think of when they think of bump caps. These have been in food processing and manufacturing plants for a long, long time. Newer are some of these fabric based ball caps, different shapes and sizes.

Greg: These all come with a variety of inserts in them.

Al: Okay.

Greg: As you can see here.

Al: So there you could just take, pop right out of that ball cap, that one.

Greg: This one you can. Some of them are designed where you could take them out, you can take them out for care and for washing. But the insert is more designed as part of a whole system. So there's a fabric outer and then there's a plastic insert that may or may not have some foam parts as well, EVA or others, just to provide some additional impact support.

Greg: So if you're bumping your head, you get a little bit more protection. These are nice because they're very lightweight, very comfortable. You can do a lot of different things with them. This is more, you know, there's a molding event here. There's only so much you can do with the shape. And then you get into the whole world of inserts.

Greg: Which, the great thing about inserts are, you can just buy the insert and put them in anything you re wearing, any ball cap that's your favorite cap. And kind of have on-the-go protection, put it in when you need it, take it out when you don't. And so those, those are very, very popular.

Al: Right on. Okay. No, that's very helpful. At the end of the day, though, why even bother with a bump cap? Why wouldn't you just use a hard hat for any job where there's a risk of a head injury?

Greg: Yeah. Well, you could. Because, a hard hat is going to protect you very well from everything, right? But there are a lot of jobs where that's unnecessary, right? Hard hats, are heavy. Can be heavy. They can be hot. And, the biggest problem, you see, and why bump caps come into play is hard hats get in the way, right?

Greg: They're a little bit bigger.

Al: Oh, sure.

Greg: They stand off the head a little bit. And so a lot of people that are wearing bump caps are wearing them because they're in a very confined space. Think of, auto mechanic working on your car, right? They're already in a tight space, kind of climbing around, trying to get to different parts and things and they want the most clearance possible.

Greg: And a hard hat actually hinders that as they're doing their job.

Al: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. All right. Well then, so as we wrap up, what are some things some real like tangible real life things that safety professionals, should take away from this new standard?

Greg: I think the biggest thing that, this will do is, give a little bit of clarity to people. I think back to the dropped object standard, when that was created back in 2018, tool lanyards were being used on job sites, you know, oil and gas and construction. It was getting to be a thing.

Greg: But they weren't labeled to anything because there was no standard out there. So, safety professionals were having a hard time knowing what to buy.

Al: Sure.

Greg: Because they thought they were doing the right thing, but they weren't sure because it wasn't labeled. It was just it looked like it was working. They believed it was working. And I think the same is true with bump caps.

Greg: There's a lot of these sold. There's a lot of them in use in places today. But are they tested the same way or are they labeled the same way? Now they will be. And that will, I think help everybody, it helps manufacturers because we all can, align in how we test and standardize these things.

Greg: But for an end user, or a safety professional who's providing these for an end user. Yeah, I think that can really make their life a little bit easier because they will all meet ANSI/ISEA 100 in the future.

Al: Yeah, yeah. For sure. Well, really good stuff. I think this helps clarify, this the standard and really use cases for bump caps in general. And I know you've been working on this, like you said, for a long time. So congratulations to you.

Greg: Thank you!
 

Al: And thanks again for joining us. If you would like a copy of the aforementioned standard ANSI/ISEA 100, you can go to safetyequipment.org, and purchase a copy for yourself.

Al: If you would like to learn more about bump caps in general, please do hop on over to ergodyne.com and search for bump caps. And until next time, stay safe out there people.