SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- At the BMW assembly plant here, as many as 66 workers at any one time are leaping into the future with the help of wearable robotic devices.
The Spartanburg plant is pioneering the use of exoskeleton vests -- motorized metal frameworks that employees wear to reduce the muscle effort needed for certain tasks. The vests can reduce the effort required by 30 to 40 percent.
Frank Pochiro, a BMW innovation manufacturing engineer in Spartanburg, expects wearable robotics to proliferate through the plant, eventually numbering in the hundreds if not thousands. More than 9,000 people work there.
Pochiro, inspired to try out the technology after seeing a TED Talk about it, is a firm believer in the devices he jokingly compares to an Iron Man suit.
"There's so much potential for helping our associates with all the different stresses and strains they have in all parts of their body," Pochiro said. "People don't really understand that here in assembly, it's still a labor-intensive process of putting the vehicles together."
BMW doesn't yet have hard data to report on injury reduction or increased productivity from using the vests. Such concrete evidence will require months and years more of tracking. But since the four-pound vests, provided by Levitate Technologies, were put in rotation in December, Pochiro hears continuous praise from employees. Those using the exoskeleton to complete overhead tasks such as installing heat shields on the underbodies of vehicles report feeling less stress and fatigue (see video below for demonstration).
Spartanburg was the first automotive plant in the world to use the exoskeleton vest, BMW says. It's an example of one of many technologies the plant has pioneered for BMW's manufacturing network, said Oliver Zipse, the BMW AG board member in charge of production.
