- Free Version: Available for teams of up to 10
- Pricing: Starts at $24 per user per month with a free 30-day trial
- Platforms supported: Available on mobile app (iOS and Android) or a web-based software
Why use SafetyCulture?
SafetyCulture is an innovative PPE management app that lets organizations streamline workflows, standardize processes, and solve logistics problems revolving around PPE management. These are done by doing away with paper PPE inspection records and saving relevant data in secure cloud storage. You can do all this and more using a single mobile PPE app.
Features:
- Download, customize, or create your own PPE inspection checklists and templates to standardize your processes and monitoring protocols.
- Add your PPE assets into inspection templates to generate unique QR codes for these items.
- Empower team members to conduct PPE inspections via barcode or QR code scanning by granting them access to these templates.
- Use the geo-tagging feature to track workers on the field and monitor if they’re using PPEs that are in good working order.
- Schedule regular PPE inspections and inventory checks to capture issues, ensure you’ll never run out of stocks, and avoid putting your workers’ safety at risk. SafetyCulture is integrated with the SafetyCulture Marketplace where you can easily purchase various types of PPEs to replenish your supply—all in one mobile app.
- Leverage the Analytics dashboard to generate relevant PPE inspection insights, create reports that you can use for benchmarking historical performance toward continuous improvement, and assign actions for corrective and preventive measures.
- Maximize the use of Training to create and deploy engaging training courses on effective PPE management for standard practices across the organization.
- Disseminate PPE management guidelines to maintain safety compliance via Heads Up.
- Integrate other Business Intelligence tools such as Tableau and PowerBI to access all safety data, worker information, and your overall PPE management insights in one place.
Why use NIOSH PPE Tracker?
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) PPE Tracker mobile app aims to help business systems, regardless of industry, in tracking their PPE inventory. In fact, the app’s focus is to allow its users to calculate their average PPE consumption or “burn rate” and estimate how many days their PPE supply will last.
While the app can only be used on iOS and Android devices, the NIOSH PPE Burn Rate Calculator Excel sheet can also be used on desktop devices.
Features:
- Extensive PPE tracking for various types, such as surgical masks, gloves, and gowns
- PPE inventory tracking
- PPE burn rate calculation
- Free Version: Available
- Pricing: Free
- Platforms supported: Available on iOS and Android
Why use CORE EHS?
As a comprehensive Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) software, CORE EHS also offers an easy-to-use PPE tracking software that enables safety officers, managers, and leaders to effectively plan, track, and maintain their organizations’ PPE supply and quality.
Features:
- PPE inventory maintenance
- PPE issue request management
- PPE stock report exporting
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Details unavailable
- Platforms supported: Available on web
Why use Sortly?
Sortly provides a simpler and smarter way for organizations to manage their protective gear and cleaning supplies with its intuitive features. In addition, this PPE inventory management software is helpful in streamlining processes related to business safety systems.
Features:
- PPE stock status alerts
- Remote PPE management
- PPE tracking using barcodes or QR codes
- Free Version: Available
- Pricing: Starts at $39/3 user licenses/month, billed annually
- Platforms supported: Available on web, iOS, and Android
Why use erplain?
erplain is a user-friendly PPE inventory management app designed for PPE distributors and wholesalers as well as companies in general industries that track and manage their PPE stocks for in-house use. With erplain, automating and centralizing your data is more than possible.
Features:
- PPE inventory monitoring and optimization
- Reporting and real-time analytics
- Efficient integrations, such as QuickBooks
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Starts at $59/2 users/month, billed annually
- Platforms supported: Available on Web
Why use Bulbthings?
As a PPE inspection software, Bulbthings empowers businesses to stay compliant with PPE safety protocols through its powerful functionalities. Use this mobile app to keep track of your PPEs, the status of your stock levels, and your organization’s history of PPE stock movements.
Features:
- PPE stock visualization
- Automated PPE maintenance routines and inspections
- Smart alerts and dynamic reporting
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Starts at €1 (~$1)/month for the default Essentials pack
- Platforms supported: Available on web, iOS, and Android
Why use Syndustry Equipment?
Syndustry Equipment aims to allow organizations to easily inspect, mobilize, track, and analyze their entire PPE inventory in one online portal. Moreover, this software can also be integrated with webshops and apps using its Application Programming Interface (API).
Features:
- PPE inspection
- PPE inventory management
- PPE lifecycle tracking
- Free Version: Available for small businesses with a maximum asset number of 100
- Pricing: Starts at €25 (~$25)/month (subscriptions depend on a business’s number of assets to manage)
- Platforms supported: Available on web
Why use Benchmark ESG PPE Manager?
A smart, intuitive solution designed to help companies ensure that PPEs are readily available, Benchmark ESG PPE Manager empowers accurate and proactive decision-making through complete, up-to-date data toward efficient worker health and safety protocols.
Features:
- Real-time PPE inventory tracking
- Digitized inventory lists across worksites
- Compatibility with other Benchmark Tech Tools, such as Dashboards & Analytics
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Details unavailable
- Platforms supported: Available on web, iOS, and Android
Why use Aptien?
Using Aptien, simplify your day-to-day PPE management by efficiently tracking all PPEs per employee and organizing routine checks of safety equipment. Also, this PPE management app allows you to save records in the cloud—making them accessible from anywhere.
Features:
- PPE supply overview
- Centralization of equipment records and activity logs
- PPE inspections
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Starts at $87/3 users/month
- Platforms supported: Available on Web
Why use itemit?
Functioning as an easy-to-use asset tracking system, itemit is also made for construction equipment tracking, from cranes and skips to critical PPEs such as protective gloves, hearing protection, and chemical splash goggles.
Features:
- PPE stocks recording and monitoring
- Barcodes and QR codes
- PPE tracking
- Free Version: Available for personal workspaces only (up to 500 items or assets)
- Pricing: Starts at £249 (~$298)/3 users/year
- Platforms supported: Available web, iOS, and Android
What is a PPE Management App?
A PPE management app is a mobile platform that enables employers and employees to discuss and perform PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) maintenance. As part of an organization’s safety program, a PPE management app can also function as a digital hazard assessment tool.
Importance
While the importance of PPE in worker protection should not be taken for granted, PPE alone is not enough. According to NIOSH, PPE is merely the last level of defense. There are other effective ways of controlling exposure to hazards that work complementary to PPE, such as elimination (removing hazards), substitution (replacing hazards), engineering control (isolating people from hazards), and administrative control (changing procedures).
The reason why people advocate the use of PPEs is that, at times, removing or replacing a hazard isn’t feasible. This dilemma is especially prevalent in the construction industry, where high-risk construction work (HRCW) is part of the job.
Though some may not even entertain the thought of using an app to check and manage PPEs, the reality is that PPEs are often crucial to the health and safety of workers, especially in the absence of other controls. With PPEs having the capability to prevent accidents and even infection, employers should pay due diligence to their proper care and maintenance.
Here are some ways businesses can use a PPE management app to further protect employees from harm:
Assess the Need for PPEs
Using a PPE management app, you can easily identify the type of PPE required for certain tasks. Since the purpose of PPE is to reduce employee exposure to hazards, it’s necessary to first perform hazard assessments before enforcing PPE use. In this step, it’s advisable to use hazard assessment templates (for general industries, high-risk environments, or hazardous workplaces) to help determine whether or not PEE is the most appropriate control measure for the job.
Hence, a PPE management app becomes essential in ensuring all work-related hazards are well-accounted for during assessments.
Keep PPEs in Good Condition
A PPE management app can help you maintain your PPEs, so they last a long time and remain as effective as they were when newly purchased. This can be achieved by conducting regular inspections where employees can snap a photo of any defects in the PPE and even annotate it to ensure that whoever reads the inspection report immediately knows where the problem is.
For this reason, it’s more convenient for employees to check their PPEs. Not conducting regular PPE maintenance can lead to employees wearing damaged or ineffective PPE, which could lead to serious health risks.
Manage PPE Inventory
You can also track the number of usable PPEs by asking employees in the field to input the PPE count daily, as well as find out why some PPEs are no longer fit for use.
In addition, using a PPE management app ensures that you’re always updated on what exactly your employees need to get the job done and how to track PPE usage. Even employees working in areas with no internet connection can still conduct PPE inspections offline and then synchronize data once the internet connection is available as long as the app enables real-time data syncing.
Reports in web or PDF formats can also be automatically generated each time a PPE inspection is completed, allowing employees to get back to their work as soon as possible with no time wasted typing up reports manually.
Schedule Regular PPE Inspections
Without an app, it can be difficult to constantly remind employees to check their PPEs, especially when you can’t be there in person. With a PPE management app, you can assign scheduled PPE inspections to employees, who will receive a notification once it’s time to conduct the inspection.
Additionally, if an employee misses an inspection, it will show up in the organization’s missed/late inspections tab. This heightens employee accountability for the safety of their PPEs while still providing employers the data visibility they need to manage PPE use.
Create and Assign Corrective Actions
Once a problem has been identified, employers can use a PPE management app to immediately create corrective actions and assign them to the relevant personnel. Without an app, solving a problem occurring in the field while you’re still miles away from the site is tricky and can get stressful very quickly, considering that the safety of employees is primarily the employer’s responsibility.
Even if there’s nothing wrong with the PPEs, you can still raise issues and create action items to collaborate with employees and managers in further strengthening the effectiveness of your organization’s PPE program.
Features
Top PPE management apps must have these features:
- Smart Forms – Create smart templates and convert your existing paper forms into digital checklists.
- Inspections – Conduct PPE inspections from anywhere at any time with a PPE management app.
- Fast Reporting – Automatically generate PPE inspection reports to help solve problems quicker.
- Insights & Analytics – Turn your PPE inspection data into actionable insights for enhanced workplace safety.
- Integrations – Connect your PPE management app to business software systems such as Tableau, Sharepoint, and more.
- Workflow Automation – Automate the boring stuff—from scheduling PPE inspections to report creation and sharing.
How to Pick the Best PPE Management App
To help you choose the best PPE management tool, here’s a quick overview of our best 10:
- Best Overall: SafetyCulture
- Best for PPE Burn Rate Tracking: NIOSH PPE Tracker
- Best for EHS Teams: TECH EHS
- Best for Simplifying PPE Inventory: Sortly
- Best for SMBs: erplain
- Best for SMEs: Bulbthings
- Best for Small Businesses: Syndustry Equipment
- Best for Medium to Large Businesses: Benchmark ESG PPE Manager
- Best for Flexible Solutions: Aptien
- Best for Companies with a Variety of Assets: itemit
You may also use this table for the comparison of free version availability, pricing of paid plans, and web-based software capability:
| PPE Management App | Free Version | Paid Plan | Web-based Software |
| SafetyCulture | Yes | $24/user/month* | Yes |
| NIOSH PPE Tracker | Yes | Not applicable | No |
| TECH EHS | None | Details unavailable | Yes |
| Sortly | Yes | $39/3 user licenses/month* | Yes |
| erplain | None | $59/2 users/month* | Yes |
| Bulbthings | None | €1 (~$1)/month** | Yes |
| Syndustry Equipment | Yes*** | €25 (~$25)/month | Yes |
| Benchmark ESG PPE Manager | None | Details unavailable | Yes |
| Aptien | None | $87/3 users/month | Yes |
| itemit | Yes**** | £249 (~$298)/3 users/year | Yes |
*billed annually
**for the default Essentials pack
***for small businesses with a maximum asset number of 100
****for personal workspaces only (up to 500 items or assets)
Some other related tools and software you can use in PPE management include the following:
- Asset Management Software
- Asset Inventory Software
- Inventory Management App
- Inventory Control Software
Check out these ready-to-use PPE management checklists that you can download, customize, and use in SafetyCulture for free:
Patricia Guevara