Safety wearables are quickly becoming the go-to fix for ergonomic injuries in the workplace, but their injury reduction capabilities extend further than that. 

According to estimates published by market research institute Frost & Sullivan in 2021, the market for industrial exoskeletons will reach an average annual growth rate in excess of 40% over the coming years and reach a market volume of over $400M by 2025.

In this podcast episode, safety professional Heather Chapman, MS, CSP, CHMM, CEAS, shares her thoughts on the current state of the safety industry and where she thinks it is heading this year.

The research will focus on the occupational activities of workers in warehouses, and whether wearable technologies that track functional movements can provide continuous physiological data to guide treatment plans and training programs that would mitigate or alleviate injuries.

OSHA has again cited Amazon for failing to keep workers safe, and has issued hazard alert letters after inspections at three warehouse facilities – in Deltona, Florida; Waukegan, Illinois; and New Windsor, New York – after finding workers exposed to ergonomic hazards.

The SoterTask vision processing software proactively assesses ergonomic risk in the workplace. SoterTask records a video of a work task and then provides a visual overlay highlighting high-risk angles and movements of a worker’s body including legs, arms, neck and back on a second-by-second chart.

One of the keys to reducing ergonomic injuries and ensuing insurance claims lies in adjusting the movement behaviors of people employed in the manual handling industries. 

There are four risk factors that employers need to address in every workplace assessment: force, posture, repetition, and balance.

Lora Cavuoto, Ph.D., CPE, is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) at the University at Buffalo in New York. She has been the director of the university’s occupational health and safety training program since 2017. ISHN talks to Cavuoto about ergonomics, wearables technology and mentoring students.