SEI IS YOUR PPE QUALITY ASSURANCE

The over-arching core message of this blog is "quality improvement". If you are going to reduce injuries, lower injury costs, improve worker comfort and the quality of work life, increase productivity, and in the process, increase profitability, you must improve the quality of your PPE program.

Our message suggests that you must upgrade the quality of PPE products used, improve the quality of your PPE evaluation process and buying decision, improve your level of PPE knowledge, and improve the quality of your source of supply in order to receive full value for your PPE investment.

A question we are frequently asked is "OK, but how do you determine quality"? It is a fair question and the first several messages of this blog address that issue. With so many products on the market, all claiming some degree of "quality", how do you sort them all out, where do you begin?. Compliance to acknowledged Standards if where most potential buyers start. But it is easy to "claim" compliance with Standards. If a manufacturer just does internal testing, isn't that a little like marking your own report card?

Fortunately, there is an alternative; independent, third party certification. The Safety Equipment Institute (SEI) does just that and does it well. Consider the following from their website:

"The Safety Equipment Institute (SEI) is a private, non-profit organization that administers a non-governmental, third-party certification program and tests and certifies a broad range of safety and protective products.


The SEI certification programs include annual product testing of all certified safety and protective equipment product models as well as annual quality assurance audits conducted at the manufacturer’s facility.
 
Both compliance testing and quality assurance audits are repeated at regular intervals to maintain certification. The manufacturer submits to on-going scrutiny of their products and processes by independent third-parties and agrees to recall non-conforming products.


Another important benefit of SEI certification is the additional assurance granted to purchasers and users of safety products. It means products bearing the SEI mark have been manufactured to meet the level of quality and performance of the most current comprehensive standards existing for the product.

While SEI does not assume responsibility for product performance, SEI's certification mark indicates that the manufacturer is concerned and responsible, and that the model for that product has met the recognized standards for testing and quality assurance."

PPE products do not have to bear the SEI mark to show that they comply with Standards and that their manufacturer has a Quality Assurance Program, but when they do, they show that the manufacturer has gone above and beyond what is required. So narrowing your buying decision to those products with SEI Certification is a good place to start.