Can you introduce yourself and tell us about Altius?
My name is Adrien Vergnolle. I joined Altius a year and a half ago as a Sales and Administrative Assistant.
Altius specializes in work-at-height safety and PPE management. We help protect professionals working at height and carry out rope access projects, such as installing lifelines and anchor systems.
In addition to our field operations, Altius has several subsidiaries:
- PLUCEO, an e-commerce platform specializing in personal protective equipment (PPE)
- 9.81, which provides PPE and safety equipment inspection services
- ALTIUS FORMATION, which delivers training on fall protection and rope access work (safety nets, work at height, rope access, scaffolding, CATEC®) and conducts safety audits in these areas
As for me, I work in the training department. I sell training courses and also prepare quotes for periodic inspections of personal protective equipment (PPE) and work-at-height safety audits."
What type of PPE fleet do you manage at Altius?
Our PPE fleet is divided into two groups:
- The field operations fleet, with approximately 3,500 pieces of equipment
- The training fleet, with 1,000 pieces of equipment
Today, the field operations team uses an ERP system to manage its equipment database. The training department previously used Scannable but migrated to ePPEcentre, Petzl's PPE management software, shortly after I joined the company.
At the moment, only the training department has made the switch. We're waiting for approval from management before migrating the field operations fleet. The latest feature updates — and especially the fact that viewer accounts are now free — will likely make the difference.
Most of our equipment consists of PPE for work at height, including ropes, connectors, slings, and rescue descenders. In the training department, we also manage tripods and gas detectors in ePPEcentre."
Why did you decide to change PPE management software?
When I joined Altius, I started reviewing the training department's safety records. The software interface wasn't attractive or user-friendly. The French translation wasn't very good and didn't always work properly. More than anything, though, the interface just wasn't intuitive. I wanted to find a better tool, so my manager told me, "Take a look at what's out there." That's when I discovered ePPEcentre. I downloaded the app, explored how it worked, and immediately thought, "This is solid. Let's go with this." On top of that, ePPEcentre is French PPE management software and costs a little less than Scannable when you look at the price per piece of equipment.
How did the migration from your previous software to ePPEcentre go?
For the training department, my manager and I decided to start from scratch so we'd have clean data and a solid foundation. In just one day, the team completely reset the system and scanned all 1,000 pieces of equipment. Because of that, we didn't actually migrate data from the previous software into ePPEcentre. We definitely saved time when it came to entering equipment information.
As a periodic inspection service provider, however, I also looked at the Excel import/export feature. It's useful when we recommend ePPEcentre to customers who outsource their PPE inspections, because there are two ways we can work:
The customer subscribes to ePPEcentre and grants our inspectors access during inspections.
Or we create a dedicated equipment fleet for the customer under our own subscription, manage it ourselves, and now give the customer free viewer access so they can check equipment whenever needed.
In both cases, the import/export feature is useful for bringing in an existing safety record, even if the process is a little more time-consuming.
Did you need support from the ePPEcentre team to configure ePPEcentre?
I didn't have many questions because I'm pretty comfortable with digital tools. I usually figure things out quickly, and I'm naturally curious — I just click around and see what happens. The interface is fairly intuitive. It's not perfect, there are some specific features that take a little digging, but overall it's easy to understand and straightforward to use. And whenever I did have questions, Martin was fantastic. He always got back to me quickly with support from the software team.
What benefits have you seen since switching to a PPE management system?
The biggest benefit is time savings. We finished entering all 1,000 pieces of equipment in a single day, and I didn't have to spend extra time training our instructors. I simply showed them how it worked and said, "This is how you use it." Since about 70% of the equipment we use for training is Petzl equipment, you scan it, the information appears, you confirm it, and you're done. It's goes by quickly. For basic tasks like carrying out a periodic inspection, it honestly takes less than 15 minutes to learn how to use ePPEcentre — it's very intuitive.
If you want to explore every feature (tags, dashboards, exports, etc.) you'll probably need to spend half a day learning the system. But if someone joins an inspection to provide extra support, they can use the software and enter equipment after just 5 to 15 minutes of training."
How much time did you save during your last periodic inspection?
Honestly, I couldn't give you an exact figure because I wasn't here for the previous inspection campaigns. But from what I understand, the team used to spend several days on the process. This time, we registered 1,000 pieces of equipment in a single day. Everything moved very quickly because the workflow is smooth. It significantly reduces the time required for PPE inspections. Of course, inspections take a little longer if you have equipment from other manufacturers. But ePPEcentre is compatible with all brands and remains pleasant to use even for non-Petzl products. Our fleet is roughly 30% other brands and 70% Petzl.
Do you use NFC tags to identify your equipment?
Yes. We use scannable tags on almost all of our equipment, except connectors. We haven't converted everything to NFC yet. But for equipment that already has NFC tags, my phone recognizes them incredibly fast. I just place my phone near the tag and it scans immediately, regardless of the tag type. It's really impressive and saves me a huge amount of time identifying equipment. It's a very efficient PPE identification system.
What's the biggest difference between your previous software and ePPEcentre?
When I need to check the status of our PPE, I don't dread opening ePPEcentre. With our previous software, I'd think, "I have to go look this up... now where was that filter again? Which menu? Which button lists the equipment?" It was frustrating. With ePPEcentre, I can go a month or two without using it. Then yesterday morning, I opened it, checked my equipment, immediately exported a PDF list, and sent it to one of our instructors saying, "You have seven pieces of equipment to remove from your truck and three that need inspection." It took me two minutes. With the old software, I would have had to click through multiple menus just to figure out where everything was. It was far too cumbersome.
Would you recommend ePPEcentre to other PPE managers? Why?
Absolutely. I recommend it to customers all the time, and I'm happy to do so. It's not just because I like Petzl. I genuinely think it's a well-designed tool, which makes it easy to recommend.
What advice would you give a company considering migrating to ePPEcentre?
That's a difficult question. I think it depends on the company's level of technical comfort. If there's someone who's comfortable with software and not new to digital tools, then honestly there's nothing special to worry about. If technology isn't your strong suit, getting some support is helpful — but that's true for any software. So I don't really have any specific advice other than: go for it. Don't hesitate. "Just do it, ePPEcentre is great!"
I remember one customer with a fleet of more than 5,000 pieces of equipment. They have their own ePPEcentre account. The day before the inspection, they added our inspectors on their account, and on inspection day everyone was ready to go. It's really practical. It streamlines the inspection process for both the customer and the inspection provider, so don't hesitate to take advantage of it."
What improvements would you like to see in ePPEcentre?
I'd like to see an email alert system that notifies users when PPE reaches the end of its service life and is taken out of service. It would also be useful to choose who receives those notifications based on specific criteria. Ideally, these alerts should also be configurable so they can be sent in advance of a scheduled inspection.
