VIDEO: TOOLING UP – PPE: Safety Gloves for Every Task

Narrator: This video is brought to you by Milwaukee Tool, Stay Safe, Stay Productive. If you're looking for real world insights, tips from leading industry experts, the latest trends in products and technology, you've come to the right place. From MSC Industrial Supply, this is Tooling Up.

TONI NEARY: Hi, and thank you so much for joining us here on Tooling Up on the MSC YouTube channel. My name is Toni Neary, and I'm your host. We're so excited you're here. And don't forget to click that subscribe button so you don't miss any upcoming episodes and to like today's episode as well. I am so excited to be joined by Austin Dorman, who is the PPE Product Manager at Milwaukee Tool.

Austin, thank you so much for joining us today.

AUSTIN DORMAN: Thanks for having me, Toni. Super excited. Have a lot of products here to show off and can't wait to get going.

TONI NEARY: Fantastic. Well, one of the things that we love to do here at Tooling Up is hear a little bit about your pathway, how you ended up at Milwaukee Tool. And I got some pretty awesome props. So we're going to talk a little bit about your newest product line, but tell us a little bit about what your journey looked like.

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yeah, so when I actually graduated college, graduated with a degree in secondary math education. From there, I kind of held various jobs in different companies. It wasn't until I actually connected with an old roommate who had a job with Milwaukee Tool. He joined their leadership development program. In the same three years outside of college that we both had, he was on his third promotion and I was still on my first job. So talked a little bit more to him and was able to actually get a job within Milwaukee Tool and started out in field sales. So from there actually took a position into management. And then for the past three years I've actually been up here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, joining the PPE team on the product management side.

TONI NEARY: And I think it's pretty amazing because PPE and Milwaukee Tool may not be the first thing that pops into mind. But tell me a little bit about how PPE has always been a part of Milwaukee Tool.

AUSTIN DORMAN: So that's actually where we came up with our seven pillars. So within the seven pillars, there are things like dust management, where we're actually removing some of that silica dust for end users. We have other things about cutting emissions. So all of our outdoor power tool equipment, some of our heavier duty stuff in the MX Fuel line, all designed to reduce emissions on job sites.

Then other ones like slips, trips and falls are actually the leading cause of job site injuries. So we have innovative solutions in the lighting as well as just removing extension cords and air hoses onsite and replacing them with battery powered solutions. So really, who we are as a company, we are a solutions providing company.

TONI NEARY: And I think based on the gloves, we can say these are part of the fiber of who you are. Pun intended, correct?

AUSTIN DORMAN: Ooh, yes, I love that.

TONI NEARY: Tell us a little bit about the gloves, your PPE line, what makes them different?

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yeah, for sure. So what our gloves are. So the ones that we just launched last year, they're what we call our high-dexterity line. So when I'm talking about high dexterity, I'm talking about a really thin gauge of gloves. So for those, you know, if you're not familiar with the gauge of gloves, what you do is you take an inch on the back of the hand and you count the number of stitches in there.

So the higher the number, essentially the thinner the gloves. So all of these gloves here in front of me are 18 gauge gloves. That means they're super thin and dexterous for our end users.

TONI NEARY: And I do have to say, like I was actually shocked, you sent me a bunch of these gloves and I'm kind of nerdy. I've been wearing them around the house a bit to get a feel for them. The biggest jump, I would say, is going from like a level three to a level nine. But these are, it is really easy to do things with these gloves on.

I mean, you have to consider one of the number one reasons that you need safety protection is to make sure that it stays on, right?

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yeah. So ultimately, like the way we kind of came up with the idea for these gloves is we started diving into some of the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the actual hand lacerations themselves. So every year about 120,000 hand and arm injuries occur on site. And then when you break that down into the next step, 70% of those hand and arm injuries actually happened when users weren't wearing gloves and sleeves.

So we took a step back and looked, why are these users not wearing their gloves or sleeves? So from there, we kind of saw a few different really key features. The gloves were not breathable, they were not dexterous. So they couldn't access some of their small fasteners and they really couldn't utilize their smartphone. So that is something that we wanted to make sure we packed into all of our gloves here—dexterity, breathability and smart swipe connectivity.

TONI NEARY: All right. So tell me a little bit, because it seems like there was a difference as well with the levels on that polyurethane dip that's on the gloves. Can you talk a little bit about that?

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yep. So what we have is we have our cut level two, cut level three, and a cut level four high-dexterity polyurethane dip gloves. So the polyurethane is a very thin dip. What it does is it allows users to keep their hands nice and breathable, gives them really good fit, but then also gives them really good tactile feedback and dexterity when handling small fasteners or like wires.

TONI NEARY: Okay. And then once the dip gets heavier, tell me a little bit more about that. Like the level nine, it seemed like it almost had a texture to it.

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yup. So when we step up into our cut level six, seven, eight and all the way up to the nine, we actually switched to a nitrile dip. So the nitrile dip is a little bit thicker, but it's a lot more durable. And also it performs really well in wet and oily conditions. So if you think of people that are going to be working in kind of those wet conditions and maybe there's some oil on some of the different parts that they're handling, that's where this dip really excels.

TONI NEARY: What kind of research goes into the technology and kind of testing in the field to make sure that these are the right gloves for your customers?

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yeah, for sure. So what we actually started with was when we came up with this need for this high-dexterity line of gloves, I took that idea to the engineering team and from there they had to look at a lot of innovative, cut-resistant materials because we wanted to not only make them super thin, but also super breathable while still maintaining the cut protection that our end users require or actually need on job sites.

TONI NEARY: So there's obviously a lot of research that goes into this. There's a lot of, you know, R&D, finding new and innovative ways to do it. I would imagine that we have to kind of justify a little bit of the investment that you're making because these are a really high-quality glove. How much longer do your gloves generally last now with some of the new processes that you've put in place?

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yeah, for sure. So when we look at like our cut levels six, seven, eight and nine, that really high cut-resistant material partnered with that nitrile dip, we're typically seeing users claiming that these gloves are lasting 2 to 3 times longer than their previous solutions, which is really exciting when thinking about that return on investment that some of our safety purchasers have to make.

When these gloves are lasting a lot longer, they're able to just get so much more use and they're just getting a lot more bang for their buck.

TONI NEARY: So more wearability, longer life, better flexibility. Hopefully people are going to keep these on more because they're going to feel better on their skin. It's pretty amazing that you've done this. So talk a little bit about how you're educating the marketplace about some of the new products that you have and how to use them and how to determine what cut level is right.

AUSTIN DORMAN: Yeah. So one unique solution that Milwaukee Tool has is we have a fantastic safety specialist team. So we have dedicated sales heads that sell only PPE. A really big part of their job is selling gloves. So they're out on site regularly explaining the benefits, sending out samples, doing what they can to make sure we're getting the gloves in the right hands of the users, and then explaining the benefit of those cut protection and helping provide kind of that right level of cut protection for the tasks at hand.

TONI NEARY: Thanks so much for joining me here today, Austin. This was amazing. And now I think I'm going to be pruning like rose bushes with my awesome new gloves.

AUSTIN DORMAN: Love to see it. Send pictures when you're done.

TONI NEARY: Will do. Thank you so much for joining us here on tooling up today. PPE is a big subject that should be covered frequently and looking at new and innovative ways to address safety concerns is definitely something we should all be considering. To find out more about Milwaukee and their full line of PPE products, go to www.mscdirect.com/milwaukee-ppe.

Thanks so much and we'll see you next time on Tooling Up.

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.