ACCELERATE adoption of EXOSKELETONS for construction and manufacturing applications in the North Sea Region.

Programme 2014 - 2020 INTERREG VB North Sea

Date of latest update: 2024-09-09

Description

Description (EN):

EU and NSR manufacturing and construction workers undertake physically strenuous activities increasing the risk of health problems, disability and sick leave, leading to lower job attractiveness and job candidate scarcity. The unfilled job openings slow growth and competitiveness especially as NSR SMEs are mostly unaware of available solutions via exoskeleton adoption (solution developers tend to currently focus on large corporates). EXSKALLERATE tackles these issues by focusing on accelerating the adoption of exoskeletons into construction and industrial manufacturing SMEs, where heavy physical work leads to severe health issues. Exoskeleton use could alleviate 10-40% of muscle peak loads for passive, and up to 80% for active exoskeletons. EXSKALLERATE contributes to SME competitiveness & occupational health by making NSR a leading exoskeleton ecosystem. The consortium of business support organisations, clusters, and research institutes, do this with 3 main activities: 1) Partners listen and identify SME challenges leading to the co-design of field labs where next generation exoskeletons integrate improvements. Improved exoskeleton benefits are validated in end-user pilots sites. 2) Informative workshops with SMEs and exoskeleton experts present and receive feedback on tools to support SME decision making in exoskeleton adoption, a key challenge limiting adoption. 3) Transnational benchmarking accelerates industrial exoskeleton standardisation (Needed for SME decision making).

Achievements (EN):

The EXSKALLERATE partners are proud to submit the Final Report after a successful completion of the project on the 30th of June 2023. Overall, a total of 37 SME Pilot sites have been confirmed and executed by the partners (target: 40). Results from these pilots indicate that 67,5% of companies observe a reduction in muscle loading, in line with partner research, which connects directly with a reduction in musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). In parallel, most of them do not report an increase in productivity - just a 7.14% on average. Yet, nearly 2/3 are considering acquiring one, after the test. This indicates that exoskeletons for industry can be a much better preventive/health-related tool than a device to be stronger or perform better. Managing expectations on this with potential buyers and end-users will be fundamental towards mass market adoption in the upcoming years. As part of the testing activities, partners also analysed and recommended design improvements, in order to accelerate the delivery of 2nd Generation Exoskeletons in NSR. At project end, the manufacturers have identified and shared 26 design updates to manufacturers (target: 15), which will help improve the usefulness of these devices to end-users. In parallel, partners have been organising awareness-raising workshops to the EXSK Knowledge Partnership (mostly SMEs). In this report, 7 workshops have been organised, reaching to up to 73 organisations. This is being complemented with the use of the EXSK Community Platform, an open forum that currently has 126 members. This Knowledge Partnership is now able to test the digital "Exoskeleton Potential Assessment Tool" (ExoPA), and received the "Cost-benefit Tool" in 2023. This second programme did not only calculate if an exo is a good solution for your SME, but also what benefits can have for your organisation. This effort went hand-in-hand with the Communications activities, which are in most cases ahead of schedule. Since project start, the EXSK website has received 13,796 visits (3,967 in this report) and has 430 followers on LinkedIn and 148 on Twitter. Finally, in WP6, the best practices report was finalised thanks to the contributions of partners that each provided a chapter based on their experience from the project namely in: design improvements, SME pilot sites, informative workshops and follow-up with standardization bodies. Building on the project achievements, a foresight study document was completed by the partnership that further builds up on EXSK achievements and predicts the future of the exoskeleton technology.

Website: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Thematic information

SME and entrepreneurship Knowledge and technology transfer

Specific Objective: Develop new or improved knowledge partnerships between businesses, knowledge institutions, public administrations and end users with a view to long-term cooperation (post project) on developing products and services

Thematic Objective: (01) strengthening research, technological development and innovation by:

Investment Priority:

(01b) promoting business investment in R&I, developing links and synergies between enterprises, research and development centres and the higher education sector, in particular promoting investment in product and service development, technology transfer, social innovation, eco-innovation, public service applications, demand stimulation, networking, clusters and open innovation through smart specialisation, and supporting technological and applied research, pilot lines, early product validation actions, advanced manufacturing capabilities and first production, in particular in key enabling technologies and diffusion of general purpose technologies

Partners (11)

Lead Partner: InnovationQuarter

Address: Prinses Margrietplantsoen 32, 2595 BR The Hague, Netherlands

Legal status: public

Website: https://www.innovationquarter.nl

Total budget: EUR 583 090.00

ERDF budget: EUR 291 545.00

HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Name: HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Address: Von-Ossietzky-Str. 99, 37085 Göttingen, Germany

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.hawk.de

Total budget: EUR 516 490.00

ERDF budget: EUR 258 245.00

Högskolan i Gävle

Name: Högskolan i Gävle

Address: 47 Kungsbacksvagen, 80176 Gävle, Sweden

Legal status: public

Website: https://hig.se/

Total budget: EUR 249 500.00

ERDF budget: EUR 124 750.00

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Name: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Address: Celestijnenlaan 300, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium

Legal status: public

Website: https://www.kuleuven.be/kuleuven/

Total budget: EUR 98 500.00

ERDF budget: EUR 49 250.00

MoWiN - Regionalmanagement Nordhessen

Name: MoWiN - Regionalmanagement Nordhessen

Address: Am Leinekanal, 4, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.regionnordhessen.de/start/

Total budget: EUR 420 500.00

ERDF budget: EUR 210 250.00

Provinciale Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij West-Vlaanderen

Name: Provinciale Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij West-Vlaanderen

Address: Koning Leopold III laan, 66, 8200 Brugge, Belgium

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.pomwvl.be/

Total budget: EUR 140 300.00

ERDF budget: EUR 70 150.00

TNO Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

Name: TNO Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

Address: Schipholweg 77-89, 2301 Leiden, Netherlands

Legal status: public

Website: https://www.tno.nl/en/

Total budget: EUR 300 000.00

ERDF budget: EUR 150 000.00

Universiteit Twente

Name: Universiteit Twente

Address: Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 Nb Enschede, Netherlands

Legal status: public

Website: https://www.utwente.nl/

Total budget: EUR 430 825.00

ERDF budget: EUR 215 412.00

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Name: Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Address: Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.brubotics.eu

Total budget: EUR 250 000.00

ERDF budget: EUR 125 000.00

Aalborg Universitet

Name: Aalborg Universitet

Address: Frederik Bajers Vej 7K Postboks 159, 9100 Aalborg, Denmark

Legal status: public

Website: https://www.en.aau.dk/

Total budget: EUR 414 719.00

ERDF budget: EUR 207 359.00

Construction Scotland Innovation Centre

Name: Construction Scotland Innovation Centre

Address: Sighthill Court, EH11 4BN Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.cs-ic.org/

Total budget: EUR 151 671.00

ERDF budget: EUR 75 835.00

Partners map

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): ACCELERATE adoption of EXOSKELETONS for construction and manufacturing applications in the North Sea Region.

Project acronym: EXSKALLERATE

Project start date: 2020-01-01

Project end date: 2023-06-30

Project status: closed

Relevant precedent projects:

Exo4Work
AXO-SUIT

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 3 835 345.00

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 1 917 670.00

Co-financing sources:

ERDF: Amount, .

Documents

Documents on this project are listed below, and organised by category. Please note field "Data source", attached to each document. Keep.eu users are free to use these documents as long as they mention the data source and keep.eu.

Reports

Benchmarking guidelines facilitating standardization framework

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Report

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2020-01-01

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Best practices report

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Report

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2023-06-30

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Design Improvement suggestions in “LegX” based on our Field Testing while performing workers tasks

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Report

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2022-02-01

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Value Proposition Map and customer profile based on the results from the Exskallerate project

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Report

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2023-03-28

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Studies / surveys

Benchmarking Wearable Robots: Challenges and Recommendations From Functional, User Experience, and Methodological Perspectives

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Study / survey

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2020-11-13

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Videos / films

Behind the Scenes - ZDF dreht zu HAWK-Projekt "Exskallerate"

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2023-03-14

Languages: de, en

Exo-suits in action - the UK's first onsite exoskeleton trials

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2023-03-01

Languages: en

Exoskeleton Trials - Bringing Exoskeletons to Construction and Manufacturing

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2021-11-24

Languages: en

EXSKALLERATE - Explainer

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2022-01-27

Languages: en

EXSKALLERATE: bringing exoskeletons to construction and manufacturing SMEs

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2021-11-24

Languages: en

Shaping the future of exoskeletons

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2022-05-24

Languages: en

Webinar | Exoskeletons: potential impact and barriers hindering adoption

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://northsearegion.eu/exskallerate

Publication date: 2024-11-19

Document date: 2020-06-30

Languages: nl, en

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2014 - 2020 INTERREG VB North Sea

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2023-02-14

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

73 / 73 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

871 / 871 (100%)

Notes on the data

Information provided by the Programme. Achievements were retrieved by Interact from the Programme website (http://www.northsearegion.eu/), or a website directly linked from it, on 2021-09-20 and 2023-01-12.

The financial data featured in keep.eu for this programme, it's projects and its partners is not exact and should be taken as a reference only.

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ACCELERATE adoption of EXOSKELETONS for construction and manufacturing applications in the North Sea Region.

Description

Thematic information

Partners (11)

Partners map

Summary

Documents

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

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