VIDEO: TOOLING UP: Innovations in Safety and Protection with Tom Lavalle, 3M

Narrator: This video is brought to you by 3M, working on the science of safe and sound. Welcome to Tooling Up, a series by MSC Industrial Supply Company, the show that provides real world insights and is brought to you by leading industry experts aimed at improving the efficiency and productivity of your operation. And now the host of Tooling Up, Mitch Free.

Mitch Free: Welcome to Tooling Up, the series that's designed to make you a better, more efficient and more productive operation. If you're new here, please subscribe and hit the like button. My guest today is Tom Lavalle, the area product marketer for 3M’s safety division with a focus on head, eye and face protection. Tom, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.

Tom Lavalle: Thanks for having me, Mitch.

Mitch Free: I'm excited to dive into this conversation but first, tell me a little bit about your background. Did I hear you started as an intern in the aerospace industry?

Tom Lavalle: Yeah, that's correct. I started at a company in Long Island, was a defense contractor, and I was recruited by Aero Technologies in 2006, which was subsequently acquired by 3M and I’ve been working in 3M Safety Division ever since.

Mitch Free: So that's really interesting. So 3M has some really interesting innovations around safety and you know, I think often people will think of safety products as kind of stale, what's left to innovate. But you guys are really taking the lead there. I'd love to hear a little about that.

Tom Lavalle: Yeah. You know, 3M’s goal is science applied to life. And with so many different areas of our company making sure that we get down to the end user level, understand what their challenges are, and then take the breadth of technologies that we have developed over the years and see where and how they can fit into improving lives and for us, for workers.

Mitch Free: 3M is a global company, a large company, and such a great reputation and respected brand. Sometimes when companies get that large, it's hard to keep that focus on the worker and the real specifics of their applications. How do you guys do that?

Tom Lavalle: You know, I think what 3M really specializes in is sticking to its roots, which is understanding that if you make a good product and it serves a purpose, it's going to be successful. And the only way to make a good product is to really work hand in hand with your customers, listen to your customers and try to respond to them. But at the same time, try to anticipate what their future needs are going to be. And by having really, really close relations between our customers and our engineering teams, we're able to accomplish that you know, time and time again.

Mitch Free: Your SecureFit™ product has been around for a while. You guys continue to innovate and that product has got a ton of market acceptance. Can you tell us a little bit about that product?

Tom Lavalle: Sure. One of the amazing advantages of the acquisition was 3M’s ability to take a look at a category and really a commodity and say, okay, so what kind of technologies can we apply here? And the goal there was looking at the challenge that employers have and what workers have, which is that you have a wide, diverse range of people.

And what I mean by that is, is we call them the Berts and the Ernies, right? You have all these different head shapes and sizes that are out there. So how do you find, how do you create a product, that is going to fit such a wide workforce consistently and the same for everyone?

Mitch Free: I know before we started using SecureFit in my business, we had this perception that all protective eyewear was the same and quite frankly, we were just looking for the lowest price. But once we switched over to SecureFit, we realized how wrong we were. I bet you hear that a lot.

Tom Lavalle: We do. You know what I think is so innovative about SecureFit is that we're able to meet that requirement, still give you a very affordable product, but introduce a technology that completely changes the way that you might think about your eyewear and the way it fits on your face. So with SecureFit, we developed what we call pressure diffusion technology.

You'll see these four rib slots here on this version of the product. And these four rib slots are not an aesthetic choice, but the slots will invert back and forth. And what that allows is for the eyewear to open and close. But no matter what your head size is, you're going to get the exact same pressure on your face.

So what this allows is for, especially for an employer who has a large workforce, to give one set of eyewear that's going to fit their population the same for everybody.

Mitch Free: Tom, I was noticing the glasses that you were showing are a little different than the ones that I normally wear, which is a 3M product as well. What's the difference in these glasses?

Tom Lavalle: So the one that I was showing was our first generation. Our new generation, we took a look at was there an ability to take that same technology that we're doing in the four rib slots and move it into two? And we've done that, and by being able to thin out the temple, which gives a different style and esthetic, we're also able now to ratchet the temples up and down.

So when you think about a real personalized custom fit for somebody, you can put these on and you're going to get the horizontal adjustment but now you can also manually adjust the vertical. So you can tilt that lens angle, you can really make it fit right and make sure you get proper coverage and seal around your eyes for optimal safety.

Mitch Free: Have you guys applied this technology to any other products?

Tom Lavalle: Yeah. So we had such success with this and we had such great user feedback that we looked at our head protection line and said, can we do something there? And in our new SecureFit hard hats and safety helmets, we took that same concept and we decided to put it into the forehead, around the forehead, on the band.

We call these paddles, and each one of these paddles will adjust to everybody's individual foreheads. So when you tighten the ratchet on the hard hat instead of just having a uniform compression against your head, the paddles will adjust to all the different contours of your face and allow you to get much less pressure on your face, but get the same secure fit.

So when we measured this, we were able to show a 30% reduction in pressure around your forehead versus traditional and legacy 3M suspension systems.

Mitch Free: Tom, it's been a real pleasure chatting with you today. I certainly learned a lot and the innovation that your team at 3M puts on safety products and making them comfortable and you know so the people adopt, and don't have to be coerced into wearing them. It's really impressive and a great mission.

Tom Lavalle: Thank you. Mitch. Thanks for having me. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you during this time.

Mitch Free: If you enjoyed the interview with Tom as much as I did then please subscribe to our channel where you'll find many more interesting and informative interviews just like this one. And to learn more about 3M safety products, visit mscdirect.com/3m-ppe. See you soon.

Narrator: Want more insights and ideas to improve the efficiency and productivity of your operations? Check out the MSC Tooling Up video playlist to hear tips that can take your company to the next level. And subscribe to our channel so you won't miss out.