How AI will make automotive and EV manufacturing a safer place to work

Lately, we’ve received loads of requests from automotive manufacturing companies on how intenseye can help to improve workplace safety at their own and suppliers’ sites. Here are some facts and figures from this interesting industry: 

Motor vehicle manufacturing’s nonfatal injury and illness rate is twice as high as all private industries according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• About half of the injuries and illnesses in motor vehicle manufacturing that resulted in days away from work in 2018 were musculoskeletal disorders from overexertion and bodily reaction. Workers in motor vehicle manufacturing experienced more than three times the rate of these cases than all private industries.
• The illness rate for motor vehicle manufacturing workers was more than 10 times the illness rate for all private industries.
• Repetitive motion and overexertion represent a large portion of these workers’ compensation claims. Even being struck by an object is unusually high on the list for an industry so keyed in on computerized processes.
• Body stress or musculoskeletal stress due to heavy lifting, repetitive actions, and sustained awkward postures are a major social and economic burden on the manufacturing industry.

Needless to mention that the Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturing industry is buzzing too. News has been reported regarding workplace safety-related issues over the past 3-4 years in EV manufacturing. These concerns are not different from what has been experienced in traditional automotive manufacturing facilities.  

The most common causes of injury in the automotive manufacturing industry are categorized as follows:

• Manual handling & musculoskeletal syndromes – Typical cases include a worker bending over an engine bay, holding a fixed posture for a long period of time, or lifting/carrying an awkward object leading to back injuries. Strains, ligament tears, and other internal bodily harm occur due to repetitive motion or overexertion, mainly resulting from worker actions of bending, reaching, stretching, pulling, lifting, working in cramped positions, and repetitive motions. 
• Being hit by or trapped between objects (getting hands caught in machinery) & struck by falling objects, moving vehicles e.g. during grinding, working under vehicles and cleaning parts, particles emitted may affect the eyes and other body parts; or, doors, bonnets, and other parts, tools and equipment may slip or move while performing work.
• Slips, trips, and falls – on uneven floors or due to poor housekeeping; failure to promptly clear up oil/water spillages. Slips may occur on oily floors and when one works with slippery parts of vehicles. Also, there are chances of tripping over tools and equipment.
• Falls from height, vehicles or raised storage areas, ladders, or inspection pits.
• Exposure to chemicals, noise, vibrations, fire, and other hazardous conditions – Noise and vibrations can result in deafening of ears. Workers are also exposed to hazardous substances and chemicals- petrol, solvents, degreasers, paints, and other cleaning products.

How can Intenseye help automotive manufacturing organizations build capabilities to manage these types of injuries? 

Intenseye offers a wide range of use cases that can help organizations observe the trends when it comes to ergonomics (under the ergonomics package), manual handling and slips, trips, and falls. Let me share a few examples here:

A case study: How to make compliance easier? 

Armed with real-time data, organizations identify and rectify the gaps between the office teams who design the work and the frontline where the work is performed. The back office teams are better informed so that they can proactively make the design safer. One of our successful customers picked the right priorities thanks to the insights that they had received from Intenseye and identified the systemic deficiencies that cause injuries related to manual handling. They worked collectively with their workers to fix these issues and made compliance easier for them – see below chart improvement in the count of unsafe alerts by 65%. 

We are excited to continue the Journey to Zero and support our customers, save even more lives and prevent Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIFs)!