As various industries seek to find ways to keep from slipping during a shaky economy, one Sudbury designer and manufacturer of fall protection products has braced itself by reaching out to women.
Norguard Industries, which celebrates its 20-year anniversary this year, is seeing continued success with its Go Pro-Girl line, featuring harnesses and lanyards specially designed to cater to growing demand and increasing requests.
This work is laying the foundation for a larger vision of catering to working women in need of fall protection equipment, according to the line’s designer, Tina Desjardins.
“Fall protection is becoming more broad because women are entering the workforce more, especially in construction,” says Desjardins, who also serves as the vice-president of operations at Norguard.
“We’ve been receiving a lot of requests to fit a woman, because harnesses are made specifically for a man.”
This constant stream of interest in gender-specific fall arrest equipment led to the concept for the new line, which is just one of the five new products Norguard typically releases in a given year.
However, because the equipment must meet the code for the Canadian Standards Association and the American National Standards Institute, only certain changes could be made to the company’s existing designs.
Much like Norguard’s standard line, the pink-hued Go Pro-Girl harnesses are made from polyester webbing, with a minimum break strength of 6,000 pounds.
To better suit the different body shapes, the line also features different strap placement and sizespecific design, with adjusters and buckles placed more conveniently.
The line also includes similar adjustments to the company’s proprietary fall-arrest Noryard, which uses energy absorption to reduce forces once a fall occurs.
First released in April, the trademarked Go-Pro Girl products have proven so successful that it expanded even further in late August. It now includes a roofing kit, which features a harness, roof anchor, 50-foot high-strength co-polymer rope, and a storage pail, among other items.
While company officials have begun to focus on marketing the new line, individual interest in the products has already been strong, thanks in no small part to word of mouth.
“The women are going in and requesting the line, whereas a lot of the distributors are unaware of it right now.”
Norguard sees its products sent all through Canada, the United States and abroad, though the bulk of the demand for the Go Pro-Girl line has been outside of the country. Business has been particularly strong from Canada’s neighbour to the south.
“They have other lines of hard hats and safety glasses, all geared to women, so this was a missing link in the total safety aspect,” says Desjardins, who hopes to raise awareness of the line through the handful of North American trade shows Norguard attends every year.
“There was always a demand for it, it’s just that nobody approached it.”
At the moment, competition isn’t much of an issue, as the Go Pro-Girl line is the only one of its kind geared to women.
Nevertheless, Desjardins isn’t resting on her laurels, and is already considering bringing in additional features and accessories, such as more padding and other comfort-related elements.
This continuing product improvement is important because booming sectors like construction translates to more demand for safety equipment.
This has left companies like Norguard in a good position to test and try new ideas, says Joanne Lafrance Musico, corporate director of sales and marketing.
“It’s not just any one industry that’s helping us to better move through recessionary times.”
www.norguard.com
