Meet Chris and see how he implemented these solutions to reduce injuries at his workplace.
If you’ve been wondering how SoterCoach and SoterTask work in practice, then this article is for you. Learning through others’ experiences is the best way to determine if a solution will work for your organization!
Here we provide a simple story to easily understand how the technology, on the ground, can be implemented into safety processes to find risk and prevent injuries.
Chris is in charge of occupational safety at a large warehouse distribution centre. There are over 100 workers in his team and he is responsible for all of them. In an environment where workers are required to perform physically demanding manual handling tasks on a daily basis, one of his key goals is to protect his team against musculoskeletal injuries.
As an experienced workplace health and safety professional, Chris is an expert at navigating the Hierarchy of Controls; working through solutions from elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls and PPE in order to reduce risk. But the process is arduous and with the advent of new technology, Chris wondered how he could better support his team’s safety.
Chris’s team are required to perform repeated lifting, bending and reaching motions and recently, a number of employees needed time off from work due to back injuries. He became determined to find a better solution for helping his team to stay healthy and safe at work. That is when he heard about Soter Analytics: a leading ergonomic technology development company that provides unique AI technology to recognise patterns and make recommendations to identify and reduce workplace injuries.
Using SoterCoach
The first step was to implement the SoterCoach ergonomic safety training program. Chris’s workers each wore the Soter wearable device integrated into their existing high visibility vests through the Soter SmartFix adapter. The ten day program alerted the workers every time they completed a hazardous movement and provided them with real-time data and short micro-training modules in the accompanying app.
Using the Soter Dashboard
Chris and the team at Soter Analytics were then able to view the data collected through the wearable devices on the online management dashboard. This allowed him to see exactly how many hazardous movements were made in an hour and also to sort employees into categories of lower, medium or higher risk. He could also see which employees were already self-correcting due to the program and which employees still needed following up. The powerful analytics provided valuable insights to identify problem areas and target specific risks.
Following this, Soter Analytics worked with Chris to implement a task log. Adrian, a picker at the business, had only started working at the warehouse a couple of months prior and in the short time that he had been there, he already had time off for back pain; his Soter wearable device data classified him into the high risk category.
Adding Task History
Chris was particularly interested in finding out how to improve Adrian’s safety at work. Adrian was asked to keep a log of the tasks he completed throughout each day; noting down what he was doing, when he started and when he completed the task.
At the end of each day, Chris entered the information from Adrian’s task log into the dashboard. This data was then analyzed against the movement data generated from Adrian’s Soter device. Using this method, Chris was able to pinpoint the exact tasks that were posing a risk to Adrian. Every morning, Adrian was tasked with unpacking the new deliveries from the pallets onto the shelves. It was during this task that Adrian’s device showed a high number of hazardous movements.
Chris discussed this with the team at Soter Analytics to find out how he could go about reducing the risk of this task and protecting Adrian’s safety at work. They suggested that he use SoterTask to analyze the task itself and find out exactly what needed to change.
Using SoterTask
Chris found it incredibly easy to use SoterTask; all he needed to do was record a video of Adrian unloading the pallets through the app. SoterTask immediately analyzed the movements as Adrian was completing the task and produced a video with an overlay highlighting the areas in his body that were moving in an unsafe way. Chris was able to immediately show Adrian to teach him about his technique.
SoterTask then produced detailed analytics that Chris could easily access on the online dashboard. From here, Chris could identify the key problems and work through the Hierarchy of Controls to make the task safer for Adrian.
Using the SoterTask Dashboard comparison tool
After implementing control measures, Chris recorded another video of Adrian performing the task. This video was uploaded to the dashboard where it was compared with the original video through the SoterTask comparison tool. Side by side, the data showed that the risk of this task had been considerably reduced.
After addressing all of the problems identified throughout the warehouse in this way, the workers once again completed the ten-day SoterCoach program. Chris was immensely pleased with the results. The data clearly showed a massive reduction in hazardous movements across the board in the warehouse.
In the months following, Chris found that the warehouse had less absences from work occurring from back injuries. He also began to use SoterCoach for onboarding new employees to ensure their safety from day one as well as to support workers returning to the warehouse after an injury. To make sure that the team maintains their awareness of how they are moving, Chris also gets them to complete the SoterCoach training program again every few months.
About Soter Analytics
Soter Analytics is a global safety science company producing AI-supported wearable solutions that reduce the risk of ergonomic injuries in the workplace. Soter wearables are widely used in logistics, manufacturing, healthcare and other industries, helping leading companies to prevent up to 55% of back & shoulder musculoskeletal injuries.
To see how Soter Analytics can help you improve safety behaviour, engage employees to self-manage their training and prevent workplace ergonomic injuries, simply Book a FREE Demo today.
