Accelerate the adoption of exoskeletons in construction and manufacturing companies
Background
Across Europe, many manufacturing and construction workers still undertake physically strenuous activities which increase their risk of health problems, disability and sick leave. This leads to lower job attractiveness and job candidate scarcity, resulting in unfilled job openings that slow growth and competitiveness. Exoskeletons may have the capacity to reduce the work load, thereby increasing the quality of life at work and potentially reducing the numbers of musculoskeletal injury, and thereby reducing costs for a company in the long run.
Most companies however face barriers to adopt exoskeletons in their work processes. This may particularly be true for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), since exoskeleton developers tend to target large corporates.
Objective
The overall objective of EXSKALLERATE is to accelerate the adoption of exoskeletons in construction and manufacturing companies, particularly SMEs.
Approach
Within EXSKALLERATE, a consortium of business support organisations and research institutes collaborate with exoskeleton developers and potential adopters (interseted companies) and focus on three main activities:
1) Identifying company challenges to influence the co-design of field labs where next-generation exoskeletons integrate improvements.Improved exoskeleton benefits are validated in end-user pilots sites.
2) Informative workshops for SMEs and large comapnies where exoskeleton experts present and receive feedback on tools to support SME decision making in exoskeleton adoption.
3) Transnational benchmarking to accelerate industrial exoskeleton standardisation (Needed for SME decision making).
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