Ken Ledward Equipment Testing Services
Klets Team
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Approach to Testing

Why test at All?

It is dangerously nonsensical to supply relatively unproven equipment to mountaineering expeditions when the lives of the members could well depend on its performance under stress. And yet some outdoor equipment manufacturing companies have been doing just that - and kidding themselves that they're getting a cheap testing service at the same time

Ken Ledward recognised the dangers in such practices in 1978 when he re-ignited an early ambition and founded KLETS, the equipment testing and staff training programme that has revolutionised clothing and hardware development throughout the international outdoor leisure industry.

Based on the simple premise that controlled test usage and highly focused report-back is the best way to give value, the KLETS team guarantee that every detail of the product under development will be examined for function, strength and "useability", before it's connected to the mobile test package. Then it'll be given a physical performance check that condenses years of normal use into as many months and shows up the lumps, bumps and thin bits long before an end-user gets anywhere near it. The whole is a match of science and rough stuff that isn't available from any other source.

Field test or Lab test?

KLETS recommend a combined approach to these two disciplines as they both give half of the overall picture of product performance. It is relatively easy to get a result for fabric breathability in the lab and this gives the designer good information with which to base their decision of fabric choice but is is extremely difficult to test the entire garment for breathability in the lab.

To this end KLETS is linked with the School of Textile Industries at the University of Leeds in a joint development programme to produce an ultra-lightweight sensor system for use in clothing and footwear performance assessment. As a result we can now measure and record a testers heart rate, skin temperature and perspiration levels; the temperature and humidity between the layers of clothing; and the ambient temperature, humidity and wind-speed.

All the results are downloaded onto a laptop at the end of each session and subsequently incorporated into our test reports.
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