Human Focus AI Ergonomics Module Brings AI-Powered Risk Assessment and Training Together

Users follow a straightforward workflow:

• Capture or upload a short video of a workplace activity.
• Select the relevant activity type.
• Allow the AI to apply the appropriate ergonomic assessment.
• Review the video overlays, scores, trends and recommendations.
• Download the report or convert the footage into task-specific training.

Selecting the activity type allows the platform to apply the most relevant assessment method and generate insights suited to the work being analysed.

The Ergonomics Module is designed for activities in which posture, movement, load handling or workstation setup may contribute to musculoskeletal risk. Its main applications are manual handling, industrial postural ergonomics and display screen equipment work.

For lifting and other load-handling activities, workplace footage can be analysed to understand the combined effects of posture, movement and task demands.

NIOSH-based lifting analysis helps users identify higher-risk moments and examine factors that may need to be addressed through changes to load weight, equipment, task design or working methods. The analysed footage can then be reused to create task-specific manual handling guidance and provide individual coaching.

This application is particularly relevant to activities in warehousing, distribution, manufacturing, construction, utilities and other environments where workers regularly move or handle loads. The dedicated manual handling solution connects risk assessment with task-specific training, employee assignment and completion tracking.

The module can also assess industrial and production activities involving bending, twisting, reaching, repetitive movement or sustained awkward postures.

REBA and RULA analysis provide whole-body and upper-limb perspectives, while joint-level information helps users see which parts of the body are experiencing the greatest exposure. This can support decisions about workstation height, reach distances, equipment positioning, task sequence and working technique.

Potential applications include assembly, manufacturing, maintenance, packaging, warehousing and other workstation or production tasks. Once improvements have been identified, real operational footage can be converted into task-specific postural guidance and individual coaching.

For display screen equipment work, video analysis can be used to review user posture alongside the wider workstation setup.

RULA-informed analysis can help identify upper-limb, neck and postural concerns relating to screen position, seating and the arrangement of work equipment. This can support more consistent assessments for office-based, home and hybrid workers.

Following workstation adjustments, repeat video capture can provide personalised feedback and help organisations monitor whether posture and working practices improve over time.

Ergonomics and manual handling assessments have traditionally required specialist knowledge and considerable manual effort.

From a risk assessment perspective, this has meant observing tasks in person or repeatedly reviewing video footage, manually applying tools such as RULA (McAtamney & Corlett, 1993), REBA (Hignett & McAtamney, 2000), or the NIOSH 2 Lifting Equation (NIOSH, 1991), and producing written reports after the assessment has been completed.

From a training perspective, this has resulted in widespread reliance on generic ergonomics and manual handling courses, because producing task-specific training has required too much time, expertise, and manual effort to be viable.

As a result, many tasks are assessed infrequently, improvements to task design are slow to implement, and training is often disconnected from the real risks present in the work.

The Human Focus AI Ergonomics Module reduces this manual burden in both modes. Anyone who can capture short video clips using a mobile phone and engage frontline colleagues in walk-through, talk-through discussions of tasks can now undertake detailed ergonomics assessments and generate task-specific training that would previously have required significant specialist input.

In risk assessment mode, users record a short video of a workplace activity using a smartphone or tablet, or upload existing footage for analysis.

They select the relevant activity type and allow the system to apply the appropriate ergonomic assessment. The footage is then analysed using AI-powered ergonomics tools, with the results made available through the Human Focus system.

Depending on the selected activity, the module can analyse whole-body and upper-limb posture, manual handling and lifting risk, or display screen equipment posture and workstation setup.

Postural ergonomics video analysis covers both whole-body and upper-limb assessment. The system applies established tools such as REBA for whole-body posture and RULA for upper-limb and neck posture.

Analysed videos are overlaid with 3D musculoskeletal graphics that highlight posture, joint angles and areas of elevated risk, making the results easier to review and interpret.

Manual handling analysis uses the NIOSH 2 Lifting Equation to assess lifting risk. This supports identification of risk factors and provides evidence to inform improvements in task design, equipment selection, and handling technique.

Across both postural and manual handling analysis, the module provides joint-level visibility, showing how individual body areas are affected during a task. This makes it possible to see which joints carry the greatest risk and to focus improvements where they will have the most effect. The joints and body areas covered include:

• Neck
• Back
• Shoulders
• Elbows
• Wrists
• Torso
• Knees

A dedicated wrist analysis capability provides deeper insight into wrist-specific risks, including repetitive movements, awkward wrist postures, and other upper-limb strain indicators. This is particularly useful in environments involving repetitive tasks, assembly, manufacturing, warehousing, and packaging.

Risk assessment outputs are directly linked to the analysed video.

Graphs show how ergonomic risk changes over time and are synchronised with the footage. Selecting a point on a graph plays the corresponding moment in the video, removing the need for manual cross-referencing or annotation.

Alongside this moment-by-moment view, the module summarises risk across the whole clip — highlighting peak risk moments, average risk exposure, and how risk changes over the course of the task. Where several people or repeat clips are assessed, this also helps identify the tasks and individuals exposed to the highest levels of risk.

Text-based reports analyse the risks identified and make suggestions for improvement. Risk assessment reports can be downloaded as PDFs, including screen grabs from videos, posture overlays, graphs, and written analysis, removing the need to produce separate documentation after the assessment.

These reports also include AI-generated recommendations that go beyond identifying risk. Tailored to the activity analysed and the specific risks detected, they offer practical guidance on improving working technique, reducing ergonomic exposure, and addressing the highest-risk movements.

Each analysed video receives an overall ergonomic score, giving a single, comparable measure of ergonomic performance. This provides an intuitive way to compare tasks and to see how performance varies across workers, departments, and sites.

Beyond individual assessments, the module brings results together into organisation-level analytics, helping health and safety teams understand ergonomic performance across the whole workforce rather than one task at a time.

These insights include:

• Joint-specific and body-region risk trends
• Peak and average risk scores
• Department-level comparisons
• Site and location comparisons
• Workforce-wide ergonomic performance metrics

Together, this allows organisations to move from reactive, one-off assessments towards proactive ergonomic risk management, targeting the departments, sites, and tasks where the need is greatest.

In training mode, the same analysed video content is reused to create task-specific ergonomics and manual handling training.

Video clips with overlaid ergonomics graphics and risk indicators can be published through the Human Focus content tools, allowing organisations to create training that reflects the exact tasks being performed.

This enables the creation of large volumes of bespoke, task-specific training that incorporates built-in ergonomics analysis. Employers can now create hundreds of individual task-specific training courses covering posture, ergonomics, and manual handling across their organisation.

Training mode also supports individual coaching and reinforcement.

The same video-capture process can be used to record individual trainees performing workplace tasks. Their clips are uploaded to the Human Focus system, analysed using AI and used to provide personalised visual feedback.

Trainees can review their performance alongside automated ergonomics feedback that highlights good practice and opportunities for improvement. Repeat recordings allow performance to be monitored over time, supporting continued coaching and reinforcement with less repeated manual analysis.

The Human Focus AI Ergonomics Module is designed to act as a co-pilot, not the pilot, for ergonomics risk assessment and training.

It does not replace professional judgement, nor does it automatically redesign tasks or workplaces. Decisions about task design, controls, and safe systems of work still sit with people who understand the work being done.

What the module does is reduce the manual, specialist-dependent effort that has traditionally limited ergonomics risk management. By automating ergonomics assessment via AI-automated video analysis, posture scoring, reporting, and the creation of training-ready content, it takes the friction out of producing risk assessments and task-specific, bespoke ergonomics training that would otherwise be impractical to create and maintain.

Human Focus supports this capability with a range of advanced online training courses in posture and manual handling, recognised by the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management (IIRSM). These courses develop the professional knowledge needed to interpret assessments properly, apply judgement, and use the outputs of the Human Focus AI Ergonomics Module effectively.

This solution, providing both individual competence and expertise through the AI intelligence process, delivers genuine safety performance improvement.