KONG is king when it comes to hand safety

By Mark Crawford

A major safety issue in the oil and gas industry is hand injuries — especially hairline fractures, bruising blows, and pinched fingers.

For the last six or seven years safety managers from ExxonMobil, Superior Energy, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron have worked together as an informal steering committee to troubleshoot safety problems that affect the industry – including the need to develop a new type of safety glove to protect the hands of oil riggers and reduce lost-time injuries. In July 2007 the committee approached Orr Safety Corporation in Louisville, Kentucky about designing a state-of-the-art protective glove.

"Hand injury problems have been a big problem in the industry for a long time," says Clark Orr, vice president of strategic planning for Orr Safety Corporation. "Committee members were telling us that because training and other attempts to change behavior have been largely ineffective, they wanted a protective glove to be a last line of defense for their workers in the field. The committee member companies are incredibly dedicated to the safety of their workforces and it had been a real honor to have the opportunity to help them with one of their safety challenges."

Orr Safety Corporation partnered with Ironclad Performance Wear in El Segundo, California, to develop the prototype, test it, make modifications, and take it to production. "They already manufacture a well-respected line of industrial gloves so Ironclad was a good company to work with," says Orr.

Innovative design

Eric Jaeger, vice president of research and development for Ironclad Performance Wear, led the design team. "The thing I found most impressive about the whole process was the direct input from the oil and gas industry," says Jaeger. "We met with the safety committee and, with their collaboration, came up with several design options, tested them with 200 drilling employees from various companies, and gathered and analyzed very detailed performance data."

Field tests showed some improvements were needed in durability and grip. A Velcro wrist strap was also considered to be a safety hazard. "We then modified the design and did more field testing," adds Orr.  

Back-of-hand protection is provided by impact-absorbing, flexible, three-dimensional thermoplastic rubber ribs that dissipate the energy from a blow along the ribs. The back of the glove provides complete protection for all carpal and metacarpal bones and the joints in the hand. Knuckle protection is provided by thick padding and an overlying band of thermoplastic rubber. The ribs are highly bendable, allowing the glove to flex in a natural way. "All that protection does no good if the workers can't perform their jobs because the gloves are too stiff or bulky," Jaeger indicates.  

"The yellow ribs are an innovative design concept," states Orr. "They run all way to the fingertips and to the end of the thumb. Because the material is soft, the ribs can absorb the energy from the blow and direct it along the length of the glove, reducing the risk of serious injury."

The formulation for the impact protection material is designed to provide optimum balance between flexibility and impact dispersion. "The fingertip protection (three dimensional protection of the entire nail bed) is part of the patents pending on the glove," says Jaeger. "It should be noted these are utility patents, as opposed to simply design patents."

A second layer of Teflon-coated synthetic leather material is double-stitched to the palm to increase its durability. "The palm is designed for high durability and grip in oily environments, which is harder than it sounds to accomplish both," says Jaeger. "For example, current industry 'grip' gloves have a lifespan of only one-half to one day." Raised PVC dots on the surface (another proprietary formulation) provide enhanced grip.

Brisk sales

Marketing the glove as KONG™, the glove that's "King of the Oil 'n Gas Industry"™, Orr Safety Corporation began shipping the gloves in October 2008. The company ordered 60,000 pairs from Ironclad and so far has sold thousands of pairs around the world. "Even though it was a much higher capital investment, we received a volume discount which helped keep costs down. We didn't want to price the gloves out of the ballpark. List price is $39.61 per pair with volume-buying opportunities to reduce the price to $26.40 per pair." (The average cost of a full-finger "mechanics"-style glove is $35.00.)

Feedback from field so far has been extremely positive. "Workers are telling us the gloves are providing complete hand and finger impact protection, yet also providing greater dexterity than the typical leather or cotton knit glove," says Jaeger. "They like how easy it is to work in the gloves and have complete protection. Management is impressed by the reduction in injury rates and the increase in safety awareness, which have health, safety, and environment directors (HSEs) extremely excited. If you're an HSE and injuries drop dramatically, along with insurance premiums and injury costs, you've done your job very well, which looks impressive in annual performance reviews."

"I think the glove is super and is credited by our shop personnel on three separate occasions for preventing a hand injury when either a tool slipped or a finger was smashed," says Kim Redwing, safety director for Gulfstream Services, an oilfield rental company in Houma, Louisiana.

"Market acceptance for the KONG glove has been beyond expectations," says Orr. "I believe this is mostly because the glove is doing what we designed it to do-protect the back of the hand. We are starting to get some excellent documented cases where KONG has either reduced or eliminated injuries." The glove is also being cross-sold into other industries such as mining, refining, and construction, where hand injuries are also a concern.

Using feedback from the field, Ironclad, Orr Safety Corporation, and the industry safety committee are already in the process of designing improvements to the original KONG glove, as well as extensions to the line including cold-weather/waterproof, cut-resistant, and possibly FR (flame-retardant) versions.