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June 23, 2021

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What really goes on inside a testing lab? Your chance to find out…

Abrasion, cutting, piercing, tearing, crushing, chemicals, repeated immersion in water. It sounds like a torture chamber, but these are just a few of the product assurance tests you can now see taking place by simply clicking a link to Arco’s new virtual lab tour.

arcoIf you’ve ever wondered what really goes on behind the scenes in a testing lab, this new virtual experience offers a fascinating guided tour around the three key labs inside Arco’s UKAS and SATRA accredited product assurance testing facility.

Find out more about the tests

The Physical lab puts boots, gloves and glasses through a wide range of abrasion, penetration, crush and other tests while the Chemical lab tests chemical permeation and Azo dyes and their Textile lab tests fire resistance and chromaticity and luminance of hi-viz clothing.

As you steer yourself around this 360° online experience, you’ll see some of the tests Arco undertake as part of their rigorous five-stage product assurance process. Progressing through the rooms you can click on icons to reveal further footage and additional information about the tests carried out in each section.

Meet the testing team

On the tour, there’s also the chance to meet some of the experts on the Arco team and watch a range of short videos of Neil Hewitt, Director of QSHE Europe& Asia as he talks about some of the startling safety statistics and failures each test has revealed. For example:

  • Did you know that out of every ten non-metallic toecaps Arco tested, four failed the crush test?
  • Or that 75% of floors tested failed to achieve the required safety standard?
  • And do you know the 3 risk factors to consider when specifying protective gloves and clothing for working with chemicals?

The tour provides all the answers to these questions and more.

Making your world safer

Arco were the first safety distributor in the UK to invest in their own in-house laboratory as part of the company’s ongoing commitment to helping customers achieve compliance through quality. The laboratory includes the following testing areas:

  • Physical Lab
  • Chemical Lab
  • Textile Lab
  • Slip Testing – Pendulum test
  • Chemical permeation testing
  • Fire resistance testing
  • Toecap failures
  • Azo dyes testing
  • Chromaticity and luminance testing

Eradicating non-compliant PPE and driving up standards

The laboratory sits at the heart of Arco’s promise to keep people safe at work. Their stated aim of not just testing to the EN standards but to exceed them. The lab constantly challenges existing standards and testing, always seeking to eradicate non-compliant and potentially dangerous products from supply chains.

As Neil Hewitt sums it up during the tour: “Only through this level of testing can you be sure that the products you specify are fully compliant and that the supply chain behind them is free from slavery.”

If you can spare a few minutes, why not take the tour today?

Take the tour here.

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Nigel Dupree
Nigel Dupree
2 years ago

Well, Display Screen Equipment interface testing has been going on since the last century now presenting in Product Safety, Occupational Health and Accessibility Regulations from presentation, accessible websites (WCAG 2.1) to, accessible Display Screen Calibration, “reasonable adjustments” of screen-operator Interface (ISO 30071.1) in mitigation of visual repetitive stress injuries or debilitating adaptations due to over-exposure to sub-optimally accessible, standard, out of the box, back-li bright white background to text.