Something new at Custom Protect Ear

August 28, 2012

Hearing Protection That Is More Proficient Than Ever

Those of you who visit the Custom Protect Ear (CPE) website often will have noticed a change recently (if you are one the site regularly you either work for us or need to get out more). For the first time in our 36-year history, CPE is distributing a product we don’t make. We have decided to distribute the Sensear product line in conjunction with our dB Blocker hearing protectors. Why? Because we are committed to being proficient in all forms of hearing protection for all circumstances. Adding the Sensear product line completes our range (and completes Sensear’s product line as well).

Hearing Protection to complete the CPE Product Range. How?

If you wear hearing aids you need to preserve what is left of your hearing (I certainly would). How do you do that? You need your hearing aid(s) to fill in the missing frequencies so you know what is happening around you. But you still need to reduce the overall volume to a safe level. That an easy job for a muff style hearing protector. BUT with most muff style hearing protectors you lose the ability to “hear” from where sounds are coming. This loss of “situational awareness” can be deadly in a online casino noisy plant.

Using the Sensear Smart Muff we can now provide the hearing protection you need with enhanced situational awareness. Finally, we have the right solution for persons who have already lost some hearing.

Ever been in a smelter? The air can be toxic, the noise is deafening, but people have to work there. To keep safe they wear protective suits with helmets and shrouds. To breathe they wear respirators connected to breathable air. And to communicate they…exactly, how do you communicate with a shroud over your head and a respirator on your mouth?

You use the Sensear SP unit with a dB Blocker earpiece. The earpiece and SP unit capture speech in the ear and broadcast it on whichever radio you are using. Using Sensear’s SP with a dB Blocker earpiece you can now have perfect hearing effective radio communication in up to 110 dBA of noise.

Person to person communication? How about hand signals.

Double Protection Smart Muffs

Mining is a noisy business. Some parts of mining are noisier than others. When you have miners working in various parts of the mine, it often difficult to ensure they always have the right amount of protection from the noise – not too much and certainly not too little. Using dB Blockers, we provide miners with great personal protection that will allow them to hear the “roof” and warning sounds. When they have to move to louder areas, we fit a Sensear Smart Muff right over their blockers and they can hear their radios and speak to others in up to 120 dB (using the SDP muff).

These are just a few of the applications CPE can now address more capably by distributing Sensear. Sensear also now has access to custom made earpieces for their units which affords the wearer enhanced comfort and attenuation. It’s a marriage made in hearing.

Learn more about Smart Muffs.

CPE: Sensear

July 12, 2012

Custom Protect Ear better serves their customers when it comes to personalized hearing and communication solutions.

Surrey, British Columbia, July 5th, 2012. Custom Protect Ear is proud to announce they will be distributing Sensear products to better serve their customers. Both companies, Custom Protect Ear (CPE) and Sensear , are communication and hearing protection specialists focused on providing clear communication and hearing protection in noisy environments. Custom Protect Ear provides personalized hearing protection, dB Blockers™, which will integrate with select Sensear Smart Plug and Muff products. Sensear’s SENS (speech enhancement noise suppression) technology combined with the fit of a dB Blocker will give the wearer a radio communication and hearing protection experience ‘like they’ve never experienced before’. Combine that with Sensear’s spatial recognition and the wearer is completely in touch with their surroundings. These two experiences combined will help reduce the ongoing ‘cost of noise’ in work environments. Click here to see the Sensear Products on Custom Protect Ears Website.

dB Blockers™ offer “The Smartest Hearing Protection in the World”, especially where interpersonal communication is required. The dB Blocker technology will reduce the cost of noise”; the cost of noise is hearing loss, productivity and risk management. Custom Protect Ear’s flagship product, dB Blockers™, eliminate hearing loss, mitigate risk management, and enhance productivity through effective communication.

“There is an underlying problem with the growing cost of hearing loss prevention in noisy work environments. It was documented that 40% of the companies surveyed reported that they had thought their workers lost up to 30 minutes a day when trying to communicate in noise. Plus, the average cost of hearing conversation programs is $310 per employee per year. With these costs combined with the workers compensation claims doubling in the last 10 years, companies are feeling the squeeze to their bottom line. There is also the issue of ‘human cost of risk management. It is more important to reduce or eliminate accidents and fatalities in the workplace. If workers cannot hear or communicate, then it’s not clear, and hazards cannot adequately be avoided. It is only a win – win when workers are provided with the right hearing and communication devices that allows them to do their jobs in a noisy workplace.” says Custom Protect Ear’s, Jeffrey Goldberg.

Hearing protection and communication devices need to enable workers to have operational awareness in noisy environments. It is the mission of both Custom Protect Ear and Sensear to provide workers with the same experience in high noise induced areas as they would in low noise areas. Custom Protect Ear’s inventory of Sensear products will allow their customers (Industrial Hygienists, Occupational Therapists and Safety Professionals) to access a total hearing protection and communication solution. The solution, dB Blockers™, will enhance productivity, save money, eliminate unnecessary costs and associated risks when it comes to providing workers with a safe working environment.

ABOUT SENSEAR: A GLOBAL LEADER

Founded in 2006 in Perth, Australia, and with joint headquarters in Perth and San Francisco, USA, Sensear is a world leader in the development and manufacture of high noise communication headsets. From a global network of sales offices Sensear is selling to end users via distributors,dealers and resellers in the majority of countries around the world. Sensear’s patented combination of hardware and software, isolates, cleans and packages speech while suppressing background noise to a safe level. The award winning technology has been incorporated into both ear plug and ear muff headsets that, whilst retaining situational awareness, enable face to face, mobile/cell phone, short range and two way radio communication in the harshest and noisiest of environments.

ABOUT CUSTOM PROTECT EAR: THE HEARING CONSERVATION SPECIALISTS

Founded in 1976, and with over 1 million wearers, Custom Protect Ear is North America’s largest personalized, industrial hearing protector manufacturer. Hearing conservation is our only business. We do not make hearing aid molds or disposable earplugs. This exclusivity allows us to devote all of our research and expertise to the innovation of better hearing protection. As a result, we have made significant technological advances in the development of superior hearing protection.

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For more information please contact us at:

Laura Bennett | Operations Manager
Email: lbennett@protectear.com
Direct: 1.604.635.3250
www.protectear.com

Cost of ‘Do It Yourself Travel’.

June 11, 2012

Cost of Noise? Or Cost of Travel

“Normally I don’t use this blog for personal issue BUT recently I had an experience that has caused me to want to cross that line.”

I was recently at the American Society of Safety Engineers Conference (ASSE) which coincided with the National Hearing Conservation Association annual executive council meeting – a whole lot of hearing conservation in Denver this week (shh).

The conference was well attended and Custom Protect Ear was busy. In the trade show we were inundated with companies that had challenges in their hearing conservation programs asking if we could help them. If someone asked us what Denver looks like our answer would have to be 16th Street? Why? Because we spent every evening dining and walking on 16th street; a delightful mix of shops, restaurants, with free bus service running the 1/2 mile of the street.

OK enough of the travelogue. What has cause me to personalize this, is my attempt to return home, back to Vancouver BC. Stories about airline travel and what has happened to it are legend. Most of us who fly harken back to the “good old days” when flying was somewhat pleasant. I’m not sure we recognized that those were the good days back then, but with hindsight, they were certainly better. This march toward airline efficiency has delegated the process of flying to the individual and the public. We are encouraged to be our own travel agents using Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, Orbitz, Priceline, Hotwire and others. The pricing for hotel rooms, airline seats, tours all are subject to extreme variability. We can buy or own seats directly from the airline, book our hotel rooms directly from the hotel, and even look for our luggage on line.

Before I make my point, a word of qualification. I love computers and computing. I have been computer semi literate since 1984 when I bought my first Texas Instruments P.C. I’ve travelled with a computer since Toshiba launched the 1100 dual disk drive portable. All of this is by way of saying I’m not afraid of computing. That said, I think all of us should immediately stop booking our own travel and return to using professionals. Firstly they need the work. More importantly, the airlines have made the process of booking travel a minefield of potential hurt. Let me give you an example of what happened to me just last night.

The Experience

Eager to book in for my flight today, I went online to United Airlines website,as I have done many times before. I advised United that, yes I would be flying from Denver to Vancouver and no, I wouldn’t check any bags. Yes I’d like to see where I’m seated, as I have a preference to carry my luggage on the plane therefore, picking the right seat in advance allows me exit the plane as soon as possible. I often prefer to sit forward so it’s easy to exit the vessel. On United getting a forward seat is known as “Economy Plus”. United charges an additional fee for a “Plus” seat, which at the time was worth it to me. But that’s where the trouble started. In my ‘seat changing option’, the United online system offered me some alternative flight choices (I was curious and thought, why not ). My meeting was ending at noon so an earlier departure could have been worthwhile.

Here is the process I went through online:

Click. 3 choices, 2 obviously requiring a stop enroute and a 3rd looking like it went straight to Vancouver. $75 dollar to change but getting home earlier is worth it.
Click. Now to select a seat; this is where the wheels start to come off. The direct flight to Vancouver is actually 2 segments stopping in San Francisco. Well maybe that’s not so bad, let’s select a seat. The same seat wasn’t available on that flight, requiring me to move seats in SFO. All of this led me to regret changing flights. But wait, THERE’S NO UNDO. You cannot undo the changes you make without calling a person. OK, I can do that. A call to United Airlines was less than fruitful and here’s how it went

Here is the process I went through on the phone:

Me: Hi there can you change my flight back to what I had originally booked with the upgrade, and get a refund on the seat change?
United Airlines Operator: Yes we can change you back to your original flight. However we cannot refund the fee for changing flights. And No we cannot apply the original ‘upgrade fee’ for an upgrade on this flight. Sir, you would have to pay for an additional upgrade and then claim a refund from United for the ‘original’ upgrade you had already paid for.

So all in all I had to take the same flight I was booked on originally and I had to pay an additional $114 because I tried to be my own travel agent. So my advice, and as I say in my everyday business, let the people who are trained and specialized in their field to ‘do the work’. Ironically, my trip was about helping professionals fight against the ‘cost of noise’, and here in this blog I am fighting against the cost of ‘do-it-yourself travel’. The airlines are too clever and luring you into things you’ll pay for and not benefit from. And don’t even get me started on buying this “meals” on board….

Take the dB Blocker challenge to fight against the Cost of Noise

June 5, 2012

How would you like to fix a problem you don’t even know you have? One that is sapping your company’s competitiveness?

LIKE THE COST OF NOISE

If your workplace is loud enough to require hearing protection then your business is under attack.

– Your productivity is being seriously impacted.
– Your cost of goods are rising from mistakes.
– You’re spending at least $310/year for every employee in your hearing conservation program.
– Your Risk Management costs are rising
– Hearing protection alone is costing you $150/person/year.
– And on top of it all your supervisors are probably spending an extra 30 minutes a day trying to communicate in noise – @ $30.00/hour that’s almost $4,000/year.

Cost of Noise

All of this is the Cost Of Noise. The cost of noise saps productivity and adds expense to companies. Reduce or control the cost of noise and profits will flow straight to the bottom line. It is a competitive advantage and many companies have recognized it. So if you and your company want to do something about the cost of noise? There’s a cure.

We challenge you to take our dB Blockers to prove we can reduce your cost of noise.

What are dB Blockers

So you’re probably thinking

– Smart hearing protection that’s also…
– A communication enhancement device that will…
– Save the us from making mistakes and…
– Reduce our cost of noise…
– Will cost a lot..

Well most of this is right except for the last point. dB Blockers actually cost less to use than cheap throw away disposable earplugs. Don’t believe me? Challenge us to prove it?
Send us an email at hear@protectear.com and challenge us to prove we can reduce your cost of noise.

I dare you.

~ Jeffrey Goldberg, Custom Protect Ear.