Armour innovation & product expertise helps Covid response

Armour Safety Australia was approached by a customer, Australian Country Choice, a large beef business, to source a launderable balaclava. Their team realised that being able to wash and re-use protective products would help save money in the long run and mitigate against the risk of running out of disposable protection products as worldwide demand was rising.

Armour Safety’s Ryan Jones got to work.

New Product Innovation

After deep analysis and research into the best products and the best materials to use. Polyester and cotton were found to be the best.Cotton's quite expensive, it's a natural product and has good antibacterial properties; polyester is man-made, hardy and resistant to shrinkage and damage. Combined they make a great team.

And so we made a blend of polyester and cotton, added 10% spandex so it has a stretch property and made a plain white polycotton balaclava. We brought these into Australia and have sold thousands. But the story doesn’t end here.

Balaclava Design #2

As the COVID pandemic continued, Australian Country Choice developed more stringent requirements to protect their staff. A second conversation followed with Armour Safety at which the client asked

“Could we incorporate some sort of mask or filtration into the launderable balaclava?”

Australian Country Choice

Challenge Accepted.

We did more research and found the most effective barrier fabric which would both protect their staff and make the balaclava breathable. The solution was to use 3 layers of fabric around the mouth and nose area. We put in two layers of pure cotton, with polyester in between and a mesh gauze on the outside.

This combination plays to the very best properties of each fabric, cotton is very good at absorbing moisture and wicking it away from the mouth and nose. This stops moisture buildup and development of sores around the mouth. Cotton is also the most effective natural product in terms of creating a filtration barrier.

The layer of polyester in the middle adds strength, making a graduated cup shape. This design ensures the mask doesn’t touch the wearer’s mouth.

Lastly we added a mesh gauze on the outside. This speeds up to the moisture evaporation process so the moisture absorbed by the cotton is drawn out into the surrounding environment.

The Covid balaclava can withstand between 10 and 20 launders before needing replacement. It stands up to a harsh laundering process with industrial laundering and bleach to kill bacteria.

How long, you ask?

We made these covid balaclavas from start to customer delivery in 3 weeks.

I hope you’re thinking “WOW” at this point!Because there’s more to making a new product than just getting samples. The samples went through a Q & A process, and were sent to Queensland Health to approve. This involved Doctor Ian Norton, from Queensland Health’s Covid advisory panel. He looked at the covid launderable balaclava, tried it and approved it.

And then we went into full production and was rush air freighted to our warehouse.

The turnaround time on that whole process from the time it was approved to delivering to the customer was just over 3 weeks.

Design #2 improvements

Later, we also made balaclavas in a range of colours for different departments. So we make white for the main floor, navy for maintenance, red, light blue, grey and olive green. The customer can keep track of each colour range and the laundry cycles are monitored.

Innovate with us

In a nutshell, this story illustrates Armour Safety’s ability to be innovative, to make products based on customer requirements and to bring them to market quickly, and priced competitively.

What excites us so much about this product innovation story is that in doing this we were also reducing the enormous amount of waste from disposable PPE.

Our innovation process underpins the culture of innovation Armour Safety brings to Australian PPE.

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