Problem addressed
In 2019, there were over 3 million accidents at work, often due to accidental events and human error. Psychologists attribute the causes of these phenomena to stress and fatigue, which manifest themselves both mentally and physically and derive from productive tasks and work environments. Even when stress does not cause accidents, it can still have repercussions on workers' health and social lives. In the literature, the physical, physiological and psychological aspects of stress have already been studied through the analysis of biometric data, but they have never been integrated with neurophysiological and psychological data. The NO-STRESS Manufacturing project, therefore, aimed to develop an integrated system of technologies aimed at analysing and understanding the main causes of stress for workers on production lines from multiple perspectives to collect reliable and accurate human-centred evidence.
Innovative solution
The NO-STRESS Manufacturing project has proposed a system that integrates different and complementary technologies, such as exoskeletons, voice assistance and non-invasive biomedical devices. This solution allows real-time monitoring of data relating to physical effort, psychological workload, through the verbal administration of questionnaires, and the physiological parameters of workers in real industrial contexts. The combination of these data is essential for analysing the causes of work-related stress and mitigating its intensity, providing reliable evidence for redesigning the work environment in order to improve the well-being of workers.
Key results and benefits
The NO-STRESS Manufacturing project merged already tested technologies for biometric measures with already commercialised tools for physical and vocal assistance aimed at studying cognitive load and stress in workplaces. This implies developing a platform-based monitoring system with tools aimed at workers’ well-being. Over time, the technology integration performed by this project would imply personalising types of workers and tasks, up to aiding the design of collaborative or digital technologies in Manufacturing. Companies will get healthier working contexts, increased workers’ well-being, risen production efficiency and fewer human errors, absences and/or downtime. They will be able, over time, to link their safety procedures, risk or efficiency assessments to the factors that affect workers’ load and performance.
Universities and research centres will gain a data source to advance their research in work-related stress, in the manufacturing sector and beyond.
Potential for mainstreaming
The project results can represent a starting point for the design of future norms/regulations for working environments (beyond the current ISO_9886) in view of biometric measures. Moreover, society would get savings in social safety, and this would support social development, since improving workplaces means also increasing job attractiveness.
