Towards a Digitized Understanding of the Skilled Crafts Domain

Abstract

Skilled workers are over-proportionally exposed to physical stress and hazards, which often means that their work is characterized by high physical demands. In this paper we deal with a proof of concept, which uses wearable sensors to monitor the movement of workers to automatically identify working gestures and poses which result in high physical stresses. Based on a rating system a real-time alerting on unhealthy positions is initiated. Apart from solutions concerning individual persons, time series data from all the workers at the site can be used to create a smart schedule optimizing the process flow and minimizing individual physical stresses. Altogether, we use the interrelations between everyday behavior and health problems to approach one of the greatest common goals of both employers and employees – the goal of “staying healthy”.