Equipois Blog

Our customer Bradken recently published a case study on their deployment of zeroG in several of their foundries.  The article in the quarterly publication GlobalEyes noted that “Bradken’s Australian foundries are utilising the latest technology for weightless tool manoeuvrability to improve product quality, operational efficiency and the health and safety of employees involved in the [...]

This week we had a visit from Scott Case, the CEO of the Startup America Partnership.  Startup America is a private-sector-led initiative to support the growth of young ventures in the U.S.  At it for less than two years, Startup America has done a remarkable job of assembling a wide range of resources for startups, [...]

  One of our bread and butter applications here at Equipois is metal fabrication, specifically grinding.  For those non-experts out there, metal grinding is most commonly done after welding two metal pieces together.  It’s done to smooth out the new weld.  Other common uses are to smooth out edges and surfaces for casting and forging. [...]

  One of the challenges for adapting exoskeletal arms to our customers’ needs here at Equipois is holding a huge diversity of tools.   Tools used for grinding, sanding, fastening, drilling, and so on come in countless different shapes and sizes.  Attachments and modifications make the challenge even more complicated.  So over the last few [...]

Determining return on investment for a new ergonomic intervention is often critical — the important push to get the necessary buy-in and overcome the inertia of current practice. We have had an ROI calculator on our site for several years but have been dreaming of and working on the next generation for some time.  Experts in [...]

  This is the first of a new series of posts here at the Equipois blog that we’re calling the Everyday Ironman.  We’re calling it “Everyday Ironman” because it’s ironman-esque tech that can be used right now.  In this series, we’ll simply post cool applications of the zeroG Arm technology that we work on day [...]

The National Safety Council has released its 2012 “Injury Facts,”  a detailed reporting on the incidence and costs of unintentional injuries and deaths.  The report is always interesting, and helpful to those involved in safety and ergonomics. Some nuggets from this year’s report: In 2010 there were an estimated 5 million “medically consulted injuries” and [...]

Manufacturing has garnered a lot of critical attention this year. A great article in the Atlantic Monthly by Adam Davidson dived deep into the current state of American manufacturing — how pricing pressure has driven low-skilled jobs offshore and productivity improvements here, both at the expense of employment.  It is a thoughtful article that analyzes cause [...]

There is an increasing focus on quantification of the return on investment for ergonomics programs. Ergonomics consulting firm EORM has posted a helpful piece on the topic summarizing results from a recent study by the State of Washington Department of Labor & Industries with the Puget Sound Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, which [...]

Customers who reach out to us tend to have some of the toughest problems facing industrial ergonomics.  The worst are jobs that consistently cause injuries and slow workers down.  Internally, we call the activities that most desperately cry out for our technology “killer apps” (with apologies to the software industry). Possibly the number one “killer [...]