Safety isn’t a luxury. It is a necessity, and automation is helping it happen.

We should all toast to that.

As an industry, especially in the US, there seems to be this idea that safety, since it isn’t easily “ROIable” is a luxury, and not a necessity. I don’t think anyone is arguing about the value of a robot loading a press that could take an arm off in a blink, but there are still lots of jobs worth automating in manufacturing – even if they aren’t as overtly dangerous.

Full disclosure, I’ve never worked in a warehouse. But I have unloaded and restacked more 50lb feed sacks than I can count. Growing up on a horse farm meant a lot of lifting, carrying, and, frankly, I haven’t always used the best form. (That is through no fault of the Conveyor Cougar though – she was ALWAYS on me to lift with my legs. I just didn’t always listen.)

When I was 19? It was no big deal.
Now that I’m closer to 40? Well, let’s just say that I can definitely tell that I should have listened to my mother.

That’s why we’re talking today about the often overlooked and underfunded side of manufacturing safety: ergonomics. And we aren’t exploring it as a corporate buzzword, but as a real strategy to reduce injuries, fatigue, and turnover in manufacturing and material handling.

Here are three practical, proven ways we help manufacturers make jobs safer and easier for their teams.

Support Your Team with Mechanical Exoskeletons.

Some tasks can’t be automated. Maybe your task requires human problem solving or automating would require too many process changes for it to be feasible. Heck. Maybe there just isn’t room for automation to fit in the space you have available.

Well, just because you can’t use a robot to do that work, doesn’t mean that you can’t support your staff.

You provide them, and expect them to use, personal protective equipment (PPE) like safety glasses or ear plugs. I think that it is only a matter of time before we view mechanical exoskeletons, like the Comau MATE as just another type of PPE designed to reduce fatigue and prevent injuries.

Now, this is not Gundam Wing. The exoskeletons of today’s factory don’t make you 100x stronger than a normal human, or allow you to fly. But mechanical exoskeletons like the MATE provide passive assistance – reducing shoulder, neck, and back fatigue during repetitive or overhead tasks. They are lightweight, breathable, and don’t require motors or batteries – just good old-fashioned design.

Perfect for:

• Overhead assembly
• Jobs that require holding tools or loads at chest/shoulder height

Leave the working like machines to the actual machines. Help your employees still feel human at the end of their shift.

Let Robots and Cobots do the Heavy Lifting and Palletizing.

Stacking boxes at the end of the line isn’t just dull, it can be one of the most physically demanding jobs in the building. There is a labor shortage, so asking a new hire to manually stack 30+ lb cases for 10 hours a day isn’t exactly a great retention strategy. Employees know their worth and need to be treated better.

(Honestly, we consider how much environment impacts mental health for zoo animals, but surely there is no correlation between spending 40 hours a week in an unairconditioned warehouse, itchy from cardboard dust and our employee’s morale or willingness to not look elsewhere for a career? 1950 called, and they want their management strategy back. #justmysoapbox)

My suggested solution? Use a Cobot Palletizing System!

Well designed UR cobot palletizer systems can:

• Work safely next to your team
• Reduce repetitive strain and lifting injuries
• Increase consistency and throughput
• Add new pack patterns or SKUs easily
• Be redeployed to different operations if they aren’t in use
• Move around your facility, bringing the palletizer to the line and not the line to the palletizer

Remember, automation, and especially robotic material handling automation, is not about replacing employees. It’s about replacing the jobs that no one wants to do with jobs that are actually rewarding and leave workers the energy to play with their kid after work.

Eliminate Manual Pallet Stacking with PALOMAT Pallet Magazines.

Pallets are an important part of almost every manufacturing facility, but they are also an often overlooked cause of ergonomic and other injuries.

They’re heavy, splintery, and just love to pinch fingers and wreck backs. They’re a tripping hazard when they aren’t stacked high, but they’re a tipping hazard when they’re stacked high enough to be noticed.

Maybe your pallet handling strategy is to have some 19 year old named Kevin who didn’t listen to his mom when she told him how to lift properly and thinks it is really cool how high over his head he can toss pallets hanging out in the warehouse waiting for a time loss incident, or maybe you have a forklift operator with the skill and finesse to make great stacks until that fateful day that one of the pallets has a broken stringer that no one noticed and suddenly there you are playing splinter dominoes as the stacks slide into each other – praying no one got hurt.

A Better Option? Use PALOMAT pallet magazines to control your pallets.

• Automatically stack and destack pallets without employees having to bend or lift – no more splinters or sore shoulders
• Prevent injuries by keeping pallets from falling over – also reduces chances of tripping injuries
• Reduce pallet damage

One magazine can remove hundreds of manual or forklift required lifts a day, and the injuries that come with them, and all it needs is 120V and a pallet jack.

Seriously, if you’ve got someone on your team wrangling pallets like a Kevin, we need to talk.

The Bottom Line? Safety Isn’t a Luxury. It’s a Necessity.

If your process wears people out physically, it’s not sustainable. Not for your team. Not for your business.

Ergonomics isn’t about buzzwords or big capital projects. It’s about asking: “How can we make this easier, safer, and more efficient for the people doing the work?”

This Safety Month, look at all your processes, not just the overtly dangerous ones, and ask:

Where can we remove strain? Where can we add support? And where can we stop doing things the hard way?

Want to explore any of the suggestions above? Let’s talk.