Learn how to improve worker safety and implement solutions to achieve health and safety goals leveraging a cloud-based collaborative simulation platform

The subject of health and safety has been an ongoing challenge for manufacturers and industry at large. Despite a long-held commitment to injury prevention, manufacturing workers worldwide are still prone to being injured and developing musculoskeletal disorders from long hours of work, repetitive movements without adequate rest in between, as well as inadequate equipment and plant safety.

In the UK, manufacturing sees an average of 66,000 non-fatal injuries per year, while in the US manufacturing accounts for 15 percent of non-fatal injuries or illnesses. It’s high time that we take a deeper, more serious look at investments that drive better and smarter injury prevention and safety for all within the value network.

Simulating a healthier and safer work environment

Simulation technology has long been used to improve products and processes as well as to get the most out of capital expenditure. So, why not leverage it to safeguard your most precious resource—your people?

Thankfully, more and more manufacturers are realizing the benefits of simulation technology to protect their workers against injuries and increase their safety—as opposed to using real-world systems to test worker safety, which puts them at risk of getting hurt.

Virtual twin technology allows for factories to be built, plant layouts to be determined and equipment to be tested, giving an accurate representation of your layout, equipment and processes before enacting them in the real world. Any potential hazards can be identified and addressed in your simulated manufacturing environment to ensure the real-life versions pose no danger to your workers.

Leveraging advanced simulation technology, manufacturers can be empowered to tackle safety initiatives from all sides, allowing them to run scenarios and simulate different configurations to find the optimal solutions.

A single platform for all your manufacturing safety needs

Simulation in manufacturing is at its most effective when it is a collaborative effort. Dassault Systèmes’ cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE® platform is collaborative by nature, enabling diverse, globally distributed stakeholders to work together to solve manufacturing’s many challenges, including worker safety.

This kind of collaborative work pays huge dividends when it comes to improving worker safety, which has been demonstrated by initiatives like MyHealth@Work. Here, Dassault Systèmes, manufacturers and their insurers can combine their knowledge and leverage simulation to virtualize the plant floor down to specific equipment, activities and operators, reveal any potential instances of injury-causing hazards and collaboratively find ways to prevent injuries and mitigate risks on the plant floor.

Though today’s factory and plant floors are much safer than they were in just the last decade, there is still much that can be done to improve worker health and safety—made possible with the help of simulation technology.

Read the full article here to learn more about achieving manufacturing safety with simulation, as well as for more resources on the topic, including:

• An infographic, “3 Simulation Technologies Every Manufacturer Should Know.”
• An eBook, “The Real-Life Benefits of Simulating a Safe Working Environment,” that provides in-depth detail how simulation technology helps manufacturers improve their workers’ safety, processes and assets.