As a result of close collaboration between ASEPAL and AITEX, the catalogue of services for testing, evaluating and certifying personal protection equipment has been extended to include; gloves, helmets, fall arresters, eye and facial protection, breathing apparatus and ear defenders.

In order to meet the needs of ASEPAL partners, AITEX has expanded its service portfolio to support the manufacturers of head, eye and face protection equipment, insulating and respiratory equipment, and has been granted Notified Body status No. 0161 for the application of the new regulation (EU) 2016/425 on Personal Protection Equipment and Directive 89/686 / EEC.

AITEX, with a wide range in the certification of clothing and protective gloves against different risks, has already started expanding its catalogue with the inclusion of fall protection equipment certification, having a fall tower with 2 test areas, one for free fall and another for guided fall, to perform tests to evaluate the conformity of products such as ropes, harnesses, lifelines, and accessories such as carabiners, tapes, rings, blockers and anchors.

The Institute has incorporated a new laboratory infrastructure for the evaluation of the mandatory and optional requirements of the standards that apply to head protection equipment. AITEX carries out the certification of protective helmets for the industry according to standards EN 397, EN 14052 and EN 812, firemen’s helmets according to standards EN 443, EN 16471, EN 16473 and electrically insulating helmets in accordance with EN 50365.

Another of the fields that AITEX has developed is eye and face protection, where tests applicable to category I individual sunscreen protectors are carried out according to EN ISO 12311 and EN ISO 12312-1. In addition, the Institute performs certification of the basic requirements of eyepieces in accordance with the EN 166 standard and the different filters under EN 169, EN 170, EN 171, EN 172, EN 175 and EN 379 standards; Mesh protectors EN 1731 and protectors for firemen and emergency service EN 14458.

Likewise, AITEX offers the evaluation and certification of gloves and dielectric sleeves, under the standards EN / IEC 60903 and EN / IEC 60984.

Regarding respiratory protection, AITEX offers the evaluation of equipment for facial adapters, filtering masks and filters, verifying compliance with EN 136, EN 140, EN 1827, EN 149, EN 405, EN 143 and EN 14387.
In the near future, in order to provide a complete service to companies in the protection sector, AITEX is working to include the evaluation and certification of hearing protection equipment in its portfolio.