a:Marketing Personal Protection Products - Pt.2

Conclution of executive summary



Thermal protection

The key to working in this market segment is to look for applications that have not been exploited yet. Additionally, it is not necessary to make the entire thermal product to be successful. In many instances, the company may have to manufacture only a small part of the overall product to become profitable. The fire fighter turn-out coat is a case in point. The coat is made of three layers: The shell, the moisture barrier and the liner. Making one of the components in conjucture with another manufacturer is a way to be profitable within the application.

Considering that the general concept of protection from heat or cold has been solved there are other considerations to think about when offering product to this market segment. Chief among these considerations are: weight, range of motion, comfort, hand washability and ice shedding for both heat and cold applications.

Largely driven by OSHA regulations a potential market is opening its arms to a possible opportunity for new manufacturers. This opportunity has to do with new standards from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) for utility line workers. The new standards are expected to address arcing requirements and cold protection elements of garments. If newer materials can meet these new standards there may be an opportunity for market penetration.

Medical protection

Traditional applications for medical protection products have remained fairly stable over the last several years. These areas include: packs and drapes, bed pads, wraps and other operating room apparel. New niche areas have developed to guarantee the purity of blood and the increase in back injuries suffered by nurses. Largely, this increase in back injuries is attributed to the increase in the number of patients who are sedated. As a sedated patient they are considered static, or dead weight. To reduce this increasing trend nurses are now wearing backbraces to help moderate these injuries. The back braces are commonly constructed out of nylon and polypropylene webbing with an internal support system. Although these products are not necessarily considered medical products, they do represent a solid way to break into a fairly insular and cost conscious market application.

Another new application that is begging for attention is the liquid filtration application. Where the dry filtration application has long been a mainstay in medical protection, owing to air filters, the wet filtration application has been lagging. For the most part, the wet filtration application will see a continuing growth trend even as the HIV and drug resistant virus issues of the past become more the norm that the exception. In past years there was a bit of a spike in this application as manufacturers worked to fill a perceived void. In today’s market that void has been filled making growth somewhat slower in North America. Other parts of the world may hold growth potential although companies will need to search out agencies and governments that have available funds. Generally constructed from nonwoven materials this application of wet filtration has developed into an over $130 million application. A slow but solid steady growth is likely.

Cut and slash protection

Two issues drive the cut and slash protection segment. These two issues include OSHA’s continual setting forth of guidelines to protect workers and the always present specter of death or injury (no matter how small the injury may be.) Although this may appear to be a rather “flip” statement the segment does address the two extremes of possibility. Death on one side, and being pricked by a thorn on the other.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how one wants to address the issue, the pricking of a finger is the bigger of the two options in dollar terms. Generally, this is due to the inclusion of work gloves on one end of the spectrum.
As with other types of protective products specifying the correct product for the particular application is critical. If the incorrect product is specified, not only will the user be at increased risk, the product will suffer a premature failure causing the possibility of further injury. The characteristics that should be considered when specifying a particular product for the cut and slash segment include: comfort, flexibility, cost, durability and abrasion resistance, thermal resistance in certain applications, cut resistance and puncture resistance.

Chemical protection

Depending upon the size and type of business using the chemical protection product, limited use and reusable protective products are recommended. Limited-use garments are most often specified, comprising 70 percent of all potential applications. For the most part a nonwoven material is specified for wearable protective products due to their resistance to a large variety of chemical, lower cost and variable modification for differing types of chemicals.

This is not to suggest that reuseable protective products are not being specified. Enough companies are specifying multi-use garments so that a cleaning service industry has become a fairly profitable venture. In many respects, it is with the multi-use cleaning company that the life-cycle of the protective product begins and ends.

This particular aspect of protective products has developed from a more unlikely part of the products use. Since many companies, such as laboratories, use a number of protective products regardless of whether they be multi-use or disposable there is not sufficient inventory or storage space to keep the products. Because of this the companies will tend to lease the protective products as a cost measure in addition to their primary use.

Executive summary end-

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