AI and Smart Manufacturing Technologies Aim to Reduce Injuries on Production Floors
As manufacturing injuries remain high, facilities are turning to AI, smart sensors, predictive maintenance and wearables to detect hazards faster and prevent common production-floor incidents.
The emergency siren sounds too often on the production floor. Accidents are distressing for everyone, with many knock-on effects that are felt beyond the worker who suffered an injury.
Safety managers dread reporting high numbers of injuries to their team. It erodes trust, lowers team morale, leads to downtime, and most likely a lawsuit, too. Some cases are particularly difficult to process because they were preventable in hindsight.
The most common injuries sustained on the production floor
OSHA data reveals the 15 most common injuries are:
- Back Injuries and strains
- Cuts and lacerations
- Slips, trips, and falls
- Struck by an object
- Repetitive strain injuries
- Machine entanglement
- Burns (thermal/chemical)
- Eye injuries
- Hearing damage
- Forklift accidents
- Electrical shock
- Hand/Finger crush
- Chemical exposure
- Falls from height
- Heat stress.
While the manufacturing industry consistently sits at the top for workplace injuries, there are reasons to be optimistic about the future. The number of recorded injuries declined from 396,800 in 2022 to 355,800 cases in 2023. Additionally, increased digitization on the production floor is expected to help decrease the number of accidents even further.
The rise of smart manufacturing
Several technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and automation, form the term “smart manufacturing.” These technologies have been around for years, but the level of integration continues to improve. Smart manufacturing companies stand to improve productivity, reduce waste, product quality and safety when smart systems work together.
AI has quickly become indispensable in manufacturing facilities, especially for its impact on safety. Industry-leading AI security products have an extraordinary capability to spot patterns, which makes them effective at detecting anomalies that indicate danger.
How manufacturers are using AI to improve safety:
- Smart security cameras: The production floor is littered with potential hazards – missing PPE, fights between workers, speeding forklifts, etc. AI-powered security cameras alert security teams when unusual patterns are detected. Security officers can review the alarm and take action or dismiss it as a false alarm.
- AI-predictive maintenance: Faulty machinery presents dangers to employees and has the capacity to bring production to a screeching halt. It’s always a looming concern. There are many machines to maintain, and it’s not always noticeable when performance drops. AI-predictive maintenance is proving to be effective at predicting machine failure with great accuracy. Predictive maintenance technology helps manufacturers reduce machine downtime and the risk of injuries to workers.
- Smart sensors: The fast-paced nature of the production floor makes it difficult to notice changes in the atmosphere. Today’s cutting-edge features multiple sensors to detect several health hazards, including smoking, vaping, dangerous chemicals and aggressive behaviour.
- AI wearable technology: The most common injuries on the production floor are back injuries and strains. Repetitive strain injuries sit a few spots behind them. Even though all workers should receive training and guidance, poor habits often creep in when workers are fatigued or stressed. AI-powered wearables monitor health, ergonomic movements and environmental hazards. Should a worker make unusual movements or have an abnormal body temperature, it discreetly raises an alarm for supervisors to intervene.
AI is helping manufacturing facilities improve safety
The fast-paced intensity of the production floor leads to thousands of injuries every year. Safety managers invest in training and try to mitigate hazards, but they need more help to keep workers safe. Some gaps need closing, as many dangerous hazards are difficult to detect with the human eye. New AI technology is helping safety managers close the gaps as it’s effective at spotting anomalies in environments.
Early detection matters. Security and management teams get more time to intervene before a dangerous incident occurs. While injuries at manufacturing facilities still loom large, companies using AI technology on the production floor are expected to bring the number of accidents down.