Protect Workers from Back Injuries and the Digital Science of PPE

3M™ Personal Safety Division (St. Paul, MN) offers ErgoSkeleton™ personal performance equipment from StrongArm® Technologies Inc. (New York, NY), which includes the V22 ErgoSkeleton and the FLx ErgoSkeleton, each designed to help protect industrial workers (referred to by StrongArm as “industrial athletes”) from back injuries. Both systems are ergonomically designed exoskeletons that, under certain lifting scenarios, have potential to deliver a significant return on investment through injury risk reduction. The V22 ErgoSkeleton is a lift assist device that is designed to automatically remind users to follow the NIOSH and OSHA lifting guidelines in every lift to promote pivoting, knee bending and better body mechanics every day for safer more energetic and more productive work. The FLx ErgoSkeleton is a postural support device that is designed to provide feedback to users and remind them to maintain proper posture and to help ensure proper lifting techniques.

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“We are redesigning the future for industrial athletes with our FLx and V22 ErgoSkeletons. Helping our wearers go home in less pain and fatigue is what inspires us to push the boundaries of human centered design,” says Sean Petterson, the chief executive officer of StrongArm. The founders of StrongArm created the company after seeing the grueling effect of manual labor on their own family members. They saw that their fathers were industrial athletes that were similar to sports athletes: they were expected to perform their job with strength, agility and endurance. Day after day, they watched their fathers come home injured and tired after strenuous workdays because they didn’t have the equipment they needed. As a result, they decided to put forth the same level of design intent and research as found in professional sporting equipment and they created safety equipment for industrial workers.

“We are impressed with these worker-focused ergonomic solutions, especially in the area of load-redistribution ErgoSkeletons for lifting,” added Dan Chen, the business manager in 3M Personal Safety Division. “Their team combines a dynamic innovative spirit with a great industrial design ethos. We look forward to our work together to help employers advance worker safety.”

Environmental health and safety (EHS) personnel are inundated with piles of paperwork to document issuance, maintenance and inspections of personal protective equipment (PPE). According to a recent study by 3M, the majority of safety and health professionals still either use pen and paper, word processing or spreadsheets to manually document their safety programs. To help reduce paperwork and time spent on documentation and compliance tasks, 3M has developed Active Safety, a PPE management system. “PPE management is often one of the last places in a manufacturing facility to go digital,” said Hugh Murphy, the business development manager for Active Safety, 3M. “Active Safety is a simple software tool to help EHS employees reduce the time they spend on paperwork, access data when and where they need it, identify trends and ultimately help employers keep workers safe and healthy.”

Active Safety uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and cloud-based software that runs on both mobile and desktop devices. To deploy Active Safety, EHS workers add each piece of PPE onto the platform. An RFID tag is attached to each piece, and a user scans that RFID tag with a mobile device to record PPE history, usage, and location. The EHS staff can also schedule upcoming events, such as worker inspections and fit testing, and can access data from their PPE program on a simple dashboard. By gathering PPE data from across a facility or multiple sites, Active Safety allows EHS professionals to connect with their employees and focus on improving safety, rather than completing paperwork. Additional features of Active Safety can include worker-specific PPE record management, inspections and maintenance, PPE audits, inventory management and trackers for employee training, medical evaluations and fit-testing. The system is configurable to fit unique safety program needs and can be used with existing PPE.

3M Personal Safety Division, 3M Center, Building 225-3S-06, I-94 and McKnight Road, St. Paul, MN 55144, 888-364-3577, www.3M.com/PPESafety, www.3M.com.