Guardian^® XO^® Exoskeleton Use Case: Construction

Construction and lifting tasks are inextricably intertwined. Construction workers spend most of their day — and career — lifting materials into place for fastening and finishing, with the potential for injury never far away. The industry, one of the bellwether sectors of any nation’s economy, is often faced with the trade-off between productivity and workplace safety.

Workers can use cranes, forklifts, and hoists to move large loads on construction sites. But what about smaller, dense building materials like formworks, buckets of epoxy, or oversized pieces like laminated beams and roof trusses? How many of those can the average worker lift per day before fatigue and muscle strain cause productivity to suffer?

In tight and unstructured workspaces where cranes and hoists won’t fit, multiple workers typically perform team lifts to move heavy or awkwardly shaped construction materials. But that still comes back to human labor, subject to the dual constraints of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) and an ever-tightening shortage of workers.

Three scenarios illustrate how the Guardian XO full-body, powered exoskeleton can help improve productivity and address the workforce shortage in construction.

• Cross-site transport — Long, unwieldy bundles of rebar travel cross-country on flatbed trucks and trailers, but ironworkers need an efficient, low-strain way to move them across the job site to the point where they’re needed. Using the Guardian XO exoskeleton, a single laborer can perform the work of two or more.
• Moving, installing, and dismantling formwork — Formwork for pouring concrete is common in road and rail construction. A cycle of installing and dismantling 45-pound (20 kg) steel or wood panels on a typical site can take two workers multiple days. The exoskeleton can enable a single worker to handle the lifting, transporting, set up, and tear-down formwork that would typically take two or more to complete.
• Lift in the right place — Cranes, hoists, and forklifts are made for heavy lifting, but they are not made for tightly constrained spaces like elevator shafts or inaccessible areas like the 40th floor. Rather than asking workers to perform unassisted lifts in small rooms and areas with little clearance, project managers can equip them with the Guardian XO exoskeleton. The robot is designed to enable workers of nearly any size and strength, which helps equalize the workforce and allows companies to tap into a larger pool of workers.

• Helps bridge labor shortages — Many construction companies face staffing problems, with four out of five firms reporting difficulty in filling craft positions and two out of three saying it will be difficult or more difficult to hire 12 months out. In an industry that historically favors a particular body type and level of strength, the Guardian XO exoskeleton levels the playing field for smaller or aging workers. The exoskeleton augments human strength, opening more employment possibilities and allowing older, more experienced workers to remain productive longer.
• Mitigates fatigue and risk of injury — Muscle strain leads to fatigue, which can lead to injury. High injury rates impose high expenses on construction companies, accounting for as much as nine percent of project budget and leading to indirect costs as much as 17 times higher than direct costs. The Guardian XO exoskeleton helps mitigate the risk of WMSD by reducing the strain of physically demanding lifts without interrupting surrounding workflows. And where health standards call for workers to socially distance, the exoskeleton can minimize or eliminate the need for team lifts that require employees to work side by side.
• Addresses declining or stalled productivity — While labor productivity soars in manufacturing, retail, and agriculture, it has been negative in most construction sectors. With a complementary lifting tool like the Guardian XO exoskeleton, construction companies can equip their workforce with the right tool for the task, improve downtime, and enhance job site productivity.
• Does more with the same or lower labor costs — Avoiding injury and augmenting workers’ strength and endurance are steps toward reducing overall labor costs and improving profit margins. The exoskeleton’s labor-saving features, like embedded sensors, 24 degrees of freedom, processing power, and the robot-as-a-service model, add up to significant multiples in productivity.