Work hard – but not at the expense of your health: it’s especially important to protect your hands and fingers when carrying out assembly work, as many of the tasks involved can’t be automated, for example, and must be carried out by hand. But sensitivity is also required to ensure that ultimately, all components are correctly installed. This can be particularly difficult when working in damp environments or with small parts that are oily and therefore slippery, for instance. However, it’s at least as important that the safety gloves are skin-friendly when worn continuously for long periods of time. In this blog post, we show what good safety gloves should do – and how to recognise them.
Many people who have to wear safety gloves every day know the feeling only too well: your hands sweat uncomfortably while you’re wearing the gloves, and when you take them off, your skin feels swollen and unpleasant. In the medium to long term, this may even lead to eczema or allergic reactions if the skin is spending too much time in an unfavourable environment on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this makes work absences among assembly personnel inevitable, because once the skin becomes irritated to a certain extent, only one thing can help: not wearing any gloves for the foreseeable future.
And, of course, working without any hand protection whatsoever is not an option, as the hands are exposed to various risks during assembly work, including:
- sharp and pointed edges
- falling objects
- crushing or
- contact with very cold or hot materials, etc.
What kind of safety gloves do I need for assembly work?
Personal protective equipment (PPE) and thus also appropriate category II hand protection protects against the mechanical risks involved in assembly work, as stated in the European Commission’s general PPE Guidelines. While category I safety gloves must only prevent superficial mechanical injuries or protect against only slightly corrosive cleaning agents whose effect is easily reversible, a third category also covers complex hazards that may cause serious or irreversible damage. Gloves in this category must protect against chemicals, electricity or even radiation, for example.
The requirements for category II safety gloves lie somewhere in between and are thus mostly suitable for common activities in production, assembly, sorting, packaging, etc. In order to be approved according to the DIN EN 388:2019 standard, these safety gloves must have successfully passed the following endurance tests:
- Abrasion resistance
- Cut resistance using conventional methods
- (Next) tear resistance
- Puncture resistance
- Cut resistance according to a new process
- Optional: protection against impact
The purpose of these performance tests is to determine how well, but also for how long, the gloves protect against a specific hazard (e.g. punctures). There is usually a degree of overlap between these tests. Only a safety glove with sufficient abrasion resistance will still reliably protect the hands from injury even under constant use, for example. And, of course, a durable safety glove is also a sustainable safety glove.
Points are awarded for levels of protection in each category. For example, for a glove to be awarded at least one point, it must withstand at least 100 to 499 revolutions in the abrasion test and a tensile force of 10 to 24.9 Newtons in the tear resistance test, etc. How well each individual glove model performed in the test can be seen from the KPIs, which are usually printed on the back of the glove. If no data is available for a performance test, there will be an “X” instead of a number on the glove.
Example: The uvex phynomic pro 2 assembly glove is certified in accordance with EN 388 and has been given the code “2 1 2 1 X”. This means a profile that makes this safety glove the ideal choice for a wide range of (precision) assembly applications.
For the reasons given above, wearing suitable safety gloves is therefore an extremely important aspect of occupational safety. However, wearer comfort shouldn’t be neglected either.
Skin-friendly and tactile
Whether a safety glove is comfortable to wear depends – literally – on both internal and external factors. On the one hand, the hands should sweat as little as possible. On the other hand, the dexterity of the fingers should be kept as high as possible. Because if a safety glove is perceived as annoying, the tendency to remove the hand protection altogether increases, resulting in a significantly higher risk of injury!
On the one hand, it’s therefore advisable to use skin-friendly safety gloves. Of course, all materials that have direct contact with the skin over long periods of time should be dermatologically tested and free of harmful substances. Test seals such as the OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 provide information about this. In addition to this seal, the uvex phynomic pro 2 has also been awarded the proDERM® seal from the external ProDerm Institute, for example. This seal confirms that the safety glove does not contain any substances that are likely to cause allergies.
The model is also a safe alternative to PU gloves for allergy sufferers, as it uses an aqua-polymer pro coating, which is free from the accelerators that are often found in nitrile coatings and may lead to allergic reactions. Another distinguishing feature of the uvex phynomic pro2 is its innovative bamboo viscose fabric. Derived from a natural, renewable material, this fibre is breathable and absorbs moisture well, so hands always stay comfortably dry. The bamboo safety gloves also feel extremely soft and silky against the skin, as well as light and flexible. Combined with an ergonomic fit, the uvex phynomic pro 2 feels comfortable against the skin for the whole working day. As the bamboo fibre is obtained from renewable raw materials, the uvex phynomic pro 2 is also an extremely sustainable assembly glove.
On the other hand, grip is a factor that plays an essential role in the acceptance of safety gloves. If hand movements don’t immediately achieve the desired results and have to be repeated several times, this is not only frustrating for employees, but also means that the work cannot be completed as quickly as planned. Well-fitting safety gloves that maintain tactility therefore play a very significant role in productivity!
Especially when working in damp or oily environments, such as in precision mechanics, assembly gloves must meet particularly exacting requirements. The uvex phynomic pro 2 has a coating that has been applied exactly where it’s needed – on the fingertips. This is where the hands are constantly in contact with oil, dirt or even highly viscous pastes. The innovative, wafer-thin aqua-polymer impregnation effectively protects against all of this without impairing sensitivity.
The uvex phynomic pro 2 is just one example of an assembly safety glove. uvex safety also offers an extensive range of hand protection for a wide variety of applications. Customers can rest assured that all our safety gloves are free of harmful substances, dermatologically tested and made in Germany.
Our service team will be happy to advise you on suitable hand protection.
Der uvex phynomic pro 2 ist nur ein Beispiel für Montage-Schutzhandschuhe. uvex safety bietet darüber hinaus ein breites Handschutz-Sortiment für verschiedenste Einsatzzwecke. Bei allen Modellen können sich Kundinnen und Kunden darauf verlassen, dass die Schutzhandschuhe schadstofffrei, dermatologisch geprüft und in Deutschland hergestellt sind.
Zum geeigneten Handschutz berät unser Service-Team Sie gern.
Sources:
http://www.psa-richtlinien.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/PSA-Leitlinien-PPE-Guidelines.pdf
https://www.dguv.de/ifa/praxishilfen/practical-solutions-for-personal-protective-equipment/schutzhandschuhe-gegen-chemische-und-biologische-einwirkungen/kennzeichnung-und-normung/index.jsp
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EN_388
Thank you, this was a good read!