The ensembles we showed off at our inaugural fashion won’t turn heads on a Parisian catwalk, but the safety and productivity they provide should get some attention on the factory floor.
In what sounded like a prank but absolutely was not, on April 1, IndustryWeek put on the first-ever “Industrial Wearable Fashion Show” in Pittsburgh at our Manufacturing & Technology 2019 event
by John Hitch | Apr 08, 2019 for Industry Week
We had six models (five editors and good sport form one of the participating manufacturers), each representing one common industrial worker. There were more than 30 different items in the show, highlighting the latest in industrial wearable technology and PPE, the gloves, boots and smartglasses that can yield some serious boosts to safety and KPIs.
The date itself was just one facet of why this show-within-a-show sounded like a gag, as industrial workers are way more concerned about how somethign works than how it looks (for good reason). It’s why the consumer-based Google Glass failed but the Glass Enterpise Edition has found a solid user base at large manufacturers.
Several months back, when I mentioned the fashion show concept to Andy Lowery, the CEO of a leading industrial wearable manufacturer, RealWear, he chuckled and told me the idea was “very oxymoronic.” He was mighty skeptical that the oil guys at drill sites his company provides intrinsically safe head-mounted tablets (the HMT-1Z1) to aren’t very worried about looking stylish. And he knows at ;east a bit how they think, as evidenced by huge deal Realwear made with Shell to deploy the HMT-1Z1 (via Honeywell) at 24 operational sites.
I agree with Lowery on that point, but manufacturers have a sense of fashion, too. It’s not the same as the European waifs working the runway in a romper and moon boots. No, fashion in this sense means what employees need to wear to work better, the clothes you put on to uncover hidden efficiencies in the plant. The big question isn’t what infinity scarf matches your favorite pair of chinchilla boots, but what PPE matches the hazards you face on a daily basis.