Aspiring was formed 1980 originally to make climbing harnesses, which had been expensive and cumbersome at the time. The business expanded during the 1980s to manufacture outdoor equipment for climbing, tramping, and caving. During the 90’s the company evolved to make harnesses in the industrial world as well as a large number of custom harnesses for the ever expanding and evolving adventure tourism and performance sectors.

Aspiring Safety Limited has expanded not only in New Zealand but now deals with customers all over the world. The New Zealand made brand and reputation for quality and innovation has helped the business grow continually striving for the best products on the market has been well accepted. Becoming ISO 9001 certified in early 2018 is of great pride to our operation and really backs up our quality systems and policies.

Business History

Starting from a single product over 30 years ago, Aspiring Safety Products supplies a broad range of products for outdoor activities, including climbing, caving, tramping, and outdoor education, as well as for professional use in work at height and rescue. In 2018 we added in Slacklines with the acquisition of the Slackline Shop brand.  Fabric and webbing products are manufactured in house in our factory in Christchurch, while rope and hardware are imported from the USA and Europe.

Since establishment in the early 1980s we have manufactured well over a million units of harnesses, and life-safety products, such as webbing slings. Our outdoor education harnesses are the industry standard in New Zealand, and are also used widely in Australia and further afield.

100% New Zealand owned and operated and proud of it!

Manufacturing Capability

We have a staff of ten  people, and are located in Riccarton Christchurch; nice and close to the hills for climbing and the port for our shipments! We have cutting areas for both fabric and webbing, which is cut on a customised treadle-operated hot cutters and automatic webbing cutters for a clean cut.

Our sewing room is equipped with eight heavy-duty sewing machines, as well as seven machines for more specialised work, including three Juki computer-controlled pattern-stitchers, three specialist bar-tack machines, and a customised rope stitching machine. All our structural stitch patterns are proprietary and have been developed and refined here over the years. Regular testing helps us ensure we use the best stitch pattern for each job.

We specialise in designing and manufacturing webbing products, and stock a wide range of webbings, buckles, and other and components. Buckles and webbings are sourced from Australia, UK, Italy, France, and the USA, as well as being made to our own requirements on our own die’s where we can’t find the right one for the job we get it made.

Overseas Expertise

Apart from our own manufacturing capability, we also rely on the expertise of a number of overseas companies who are leaders in the outdoor and height-safety industries. These include:

  • Pigeon Mountain Industries (PMI), USA – static ropes, Dynamic Ropes;
  • International Safety Components (ISC), UK – buckles, rope grabs;
  • Peguet , France – Maillons Rapides (screw-links);
  • Seattle Manufacturing Corporation (SMC), USA – pulleys;
  • Climbing Technology, Italy  – karabiners, helmets, ascenders, descenders, bolting, bags, buckles;
  • Colorado Mountain Industries (CMI), USA – pulleys.
  • Fixe Climbing, Spain – Dynamic Ropes, Cams, Anchors
  • Bestard – Spain – Specialised Canyon and Aquatic Shoes
  • Saltic – Czech Rublic – Specialised climbing shoes

Technical Capability

We have the expertise to advise on any height safety problem, and can recommend a training organisation if required. We represent business NZ on the Standards Australia SF15 committee and attend every meeting, which reviews New Zealand and Australian height safety standards. This helps us keep up to date with new developments, discuss with our industry peers best practice and ensure the standards written for our countries are relevant and applicable both on the manufacturing side and the end user application.

We have three testing facilities for harness testing, a 6m drop test tower for Dynamic drop testing, a static hydraulic rig that is monitored by a Dillon 50 kN dynamometer, as well as a 100kn Tensile Testing machine.

We also call upon independent test laboratories for much of our product testing, development and surveillance where needed.

We have developed a number of customised products over the years, put it this way if you are in New Zealand and you are hanging in it or jumping of it we no doubt had something to do with it!